Purim 5770 – For Entertainment Purposes Only

[Note: We do NOT endorse the Kashrut of any products listed]

And So if the Book of Esther is about Esther

And the Book of Ruth is about Ruth

Is the Book of Tanya about a woman named Tanya?

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We are now Observing Parshat Zachor in Yeshivat Machmirim min Hamachmirim.  Here is the description as transcribed by the Press Corp covering the Olympic Laining Tryouts…

In a 3.5 hour long ritual, Parshat Zachor will be read sufficient times so as to cover all the Halachic Bases – a kind of Spring Training for Baaeli Q’riah.

First the entire Zachor must be read in full twice – once with Zecher and once with Zeicher

Second – every halachic permutation for the proper Torah and Masoretic text must be accommodated. What good is Zachor with Zecher if the sefer is not correct!? Thus Ashkenazic scrolls, Rambam Scrolls, Chabad Scrolls, Mitnagged scrolls etc. must be supplied using every version of Sta”m Ashurit EG Beth Yosef and Arizal etc.

Third every communal pronunciation must also be accounted for
EG:

  • Teimani
  • Moroccan
  • Syrian
  • Yekke
  • Spanish-Portuguese
  • Litvisher
  • Hungarian
  • Polish
  • Galician
  • Romanian
  • Modern Israeli
  • Etc.

    Must also be lained in conjunction for all of the above.

    The Ritual takes about 3.5 hours to read the 3 verses enough times to satisfy everyone. The amount of otyot read accumulates to 75,000 which matches the death toll in Persia on the 13th of Adar.

    After the marathon laining is over, everyone is too tired to eat so a cup of wine is consumed for kiddush, and then the community then takes its Shabbat nap, giving this yeshiva of machmirim a head start on ad d’lo yada before the rest of the world rests.

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New Humra - Olympic Glatt

Traditionally Kosher Meat has been classified into a stratified hierarchy:

  • Kosher
  • Glatt Kosher
  • Beth Joseph Glatt Kosher.

And now in Honor of the Vancouver Winter Olympics we introduce to the Podium:

“Olympic Glatt Kosher”

With OGK – when inspecting the lungs the new procedure will be performed by
an Olympic ice skater who will verify the smoothness of the lung by SKATING on it.
There is already a Machloqet how this is done

A. Rabbi Oh! No! says:
Use a Speed Skater

B. Rabbi Lutz Says
Use a Figure Skater – he should figure 8 out

C.  R Langenbrunner says
A Hockey Player should CHECK the lungs

Within “A” some say
Short Track [kitzur b'diqah]
Others are mattir ANY Speed skater

Others mattir ANY Olympic Skater

And some say women’s figure skaters are not allowed because of mar’it ayin – Meaning No staring at their FIGURES

Any lung smooth enough for ice skating will be deemed Olympic Glatt. Rejects will be tested for lesser forms of smoothness and sent DOWNHILL to lesser forms of Kosher before being disqualified

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It seems Hazal claim that Achashveirosh [XERXES] was a tippesh - IOW stupid

think v’nahapoch Hu

In the first half of the Megillah the Jews suffer

In the second half Haman and his allies suffer

But all the while Achashveirosh is partying along having a merry ol time – and always running with the front-runner

This reminds of Italy during WWI and WWII. Always joining the side that’s winning. Doesn’t sound so stupid now, does it?

Have your own v’nahapoch hu this Purim

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Kol ho’omer davar b’sheim omro meivi g’ulah l’olam Avot 6:6

I always wondered how that could work?
How does citing the proper source bring g’ula?

Shloymie: Rabbi Wolpoe – with all due respect. [WADR] you overlook the obvious

RRW: How so?

Shloymie: L’mashal - if Rambam says to behave a certain way, or to observe a certain dynamic, or to think along certain lines – we have to follow the Rambam

RRW: – and so?

Shloymie: BUT if we can say b’sheim omro that the source is Aristotle we are freed from obeying! Since who is Aristotle to tell us how to think or behave?

RRW: AHA

Shloymie: and so this rescue from his strictures is a form of g’ulah

RRW: any more?

Shloymie: You surprise me! L’mashal say R Yisroel Salanter minted thirteen middos of behaviour to emulate on a rotational basis.

RRW: Go on.

Shloymie: But if we were to l’mashal find out that those same middos were penned 100 years earlier by Benjamin Franklin in his Autobiography – it would change everything! Once we would know the sheim om’ro, we are no longer m’chuyyav to observe these middos - because they have an alien basis.

RRW: I see! So b’sheim Om’ro brings g’ulah by ad hominem attacking the source and side-stepping the wisdom or advice beig offered!.

Shloymie: Exactly! Now you got it Rabbi! V’nahapoch Hu!

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Praying to Angels – Sukkot I

On Sukkot, many Jews welcome guests, ushpizin, which is related to the word “auspices,” who are the ancient heroes of Israelite history. On Friday night, we say barechuni le-shalom, that we ask angels to bless us, and in the Ashkenazi selihah, machnisei rahamim, we say words that sound as if we are praying to God and not to angels.

I. The Problem

The problem with these rites is that as monotheists, we would assume that the rites are theologically wrong. The malach, or angel, in Ugaritic literature is a low grade divinity is a polytheistic pantheon.

The root of malach in Ugaritic is l-a-k, cognate to h-l-k/y-l-k in Hebrew. refers to “going,” walking, or agency. Does belief in or worship of angels conflict with Judaism?

Professor Rachel Elior has argued that Judaism speaks in many voices. Angels appear in Hebrew scripture, the Qumran library, and popular religion folklore. The Machnise Rahamim and Shalom Aleichem reflect Orthodox Jews apparently praying to angels. From the time of Targum Onqolos to Maimonides, official religion Judaism rejects the notion that angels are proper targets of devotion. While Qumran and apocalyptic Second Commonwealth Judaisms accepts angels, as did some biblical texts, Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, the Oral Torah trove, and “official religion” Rabbinic Judaism does not. Which, both, or neither of these contending Judaisms “orthodox”

II. The Rabbinic Response

The Rabbinic sages knowingly required the reading of Targum Onqolos, which unlike apocalyptic writing, is radically non-anthropomorphic. bHollin 40a clearly rules that offering cult to the archangel Michael is idolatry, zivhei meitim.

Maimonides, Laws of Torah Foundations, chapters 1-2 and Repentance, 3:7, reiterates the official religion response to the matter. Ever the non-literalists, Maimonides regards angels as metaphors. The truth be told, a comparison of Hebrew Scripture to Ugaritic writing indicates that monotheism, that there is only one God, is not the only possible read of Scripture. [see Deuteronomy 32:7 in the Septuagint!]

Genesis 11:5 reports that God comes down from heaven to see what is happening when the Tower of Babylon was being built. Onqolos understands the metaphor to express revelation and, in the Aristotelian tradition, Maimonides argues that bodies move and God, who has no body, does not. If one understands peshat as how Scripture was understood by the first readers, it would seem that ancient Israel believed in angels and that God does appear physically to humans. The great pashtan and product as well as producer of medieval Northwestern European Judaism, whose cognate culture was Catholic and which believes that God can become flesh, Rashi is not at all troubled by the literalist sense of the verse Now, Rashi is a literalist, he is not shy when probing biblical problems and inconsistencies, often relies on Onqolos, i.e., ke-Targumo, but here rejects Onqolos by not endorsing a rejection of divine corporeality.

bSanhedrin 4b says that a blind person is exempt from appearing at the temple, that he who sees with two eyes must be seen with two eyes. Rashi takes the subject of the sentence who sees with two eyes to be God. The Talmud need not be seen this way but an authority as great as Rashi, the Tosafist R. Moses Taqu, and Raabad apparently believed in corporeal divinity.

III. The Culture Convention

Mimetic culture Orthodoxy, while aware of Maimonides’ view, ignores the view. Angels appear in the Bible and in the Rabbinic canon and the world of many Orthodox adherents is enchanted, infused with divinity, and neither Maimonidean nor modern.

Rabbi Moses Feinstein complained about those who refuse to say barechuni le-shalom. He believed that culture Orthodoxy may not be subject to review, as one cannot critique smoking because great rabbis smoke. To dissent with a great rabbi is rude, disrespectful, and therefore evil. Great rabbis are right by definition because these rabbis who believe that God has a body themselves embody Torah. The Judaism of the sacred library is applied by the rabbis in a way that the accepted and expected religion may not be challenged. bHollin 40a does not seem to be a concern for R. Feinstein. On the other hand, Rabbi Soloveitchik and the Gaon did not say the problematic passages. While the passages in question need not be taken literally, it is likely that their first readers took the passages literally. And a Judaism that will allow praying angels and accepting corporeality of God will find religious canonicity in the incarnate Torah sage whose insight and intuition parses the sacred text. We recall that Malbim to Hannah’s Prayer [I Samuel 2] rules, against bHollin 40a, that one may pray to angels. To this view, the “Tradition that cannot be questioned is inherited culture. We are by Raavad told that we may not question the Judaism that we have inherited from our ancestors while Maran Karo claims that we measure validity against the Torah canon library. [ Bet Yosef, Hoshen Mishpat 25] We recall that Raavad disagreed with Maimonides claim that one who believes that God becomes flesh is a heretic.

IV. The Correct Jewish attitude today

In medieval France , the world was enchanted. Scripture is read literally and law, figuratively. The Tosafist use of davqa, specifically, and lav davqa, regularly refer to a casuistic reading of the canonical Talmud that maintains the de jure authority of the Talmud while empowering the Tosafists to create a flexible law. Given the Christian cognate culture, these qualities of French Judaism are understandable if not acceptable.

The claim that calling Rashi wrong is disrespectful is problematic. Tosafot regularly called Rashi wrong, and in Sefer ha-Yashar, disrespectfully, according to Prof. Urbach. Prof. Karnafogel argues that there was a large divide in medieval theology. If tolerance for problematic doctrines is acceptable in medieval Judaism, why are contemporary Orthodox adherents less tolerant? Are we to claim that a doctrine endorsed by a great rabbi is by definition correct, even against the normative—as opposed to the descriptive—norms of the Oral Torah, have we not redefined God’s covenant to an oligarchic convention and consensus?

Today, we do not pray to angels and Onqolos regards the idiom as metaphor, as well. Therefore one may not object to others mentioning angels in prayers. Similarly, a parallel tolerance towards Orthodox Jews of good will who apply scientific method when studying Torah would necessary and appropriate.

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