Existential Angst February '08

Feb 27, 2008 11:16 PM
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away_
When you're young, life seems to be about gaining things. As the song goes:

Get born, get school, get job, get car, pay tax and find a wife

(Get house, get kids, get bigger house, get more kids, get better job. Repeat until old age.)

As you get older though, you start to lose things; your youthful physique, your hair, your health, your parents, and ultimately your life. I suppose you gain children, wisdom and experience but it seems that ultimately you lose more than you gain (unless you believe in the afterlife I guess).

In the last year I've lost a lot and gained a lot, but it's been such a roller coaster that I can't quite get my head around it. Here's my tally:

Lost a parent, gained a child
Losing a parent is pretty damn painful. Firstly you lose someone you loved. Secondly, it's painful to watch someone you love suffer badly and die. Thirdly it reminds you very vividly of your own mortality. Gaining a child is a joyful experience to be sure, but it's not a good swap.

Lost faith, gained enlightenment
Losing faith is pretty damn painful too. It's like the rug gets pulled out from under you. To be fair, I didn't so much lose my faith as cut it into little pieces with the chainsaw of logic and reason. But the end result was the same. Gaining enlightenment I guess was good kinda, but still doesn't seem like a fair swap. Reality is nowhere near as comforting as the unbelievable fantasy we call religion.

Lose original family, get new family
This one creeps up on you slowly but surely. Eventually you realize that you have an entirely new family consisting of your wife and kids. Your 'old' family, i.e. your parents and siblings, has somehow disintigrated. Parents have died, siblings are busy with their own families and are starting to drift apart. It's very sad to lose your old family, but it is nice to have your 'own' family. This is a tough choice. Would I rather be the father of a new family, or a son in my old family?

Lost my old job, got a new one (to be accurate I quit my old job)
Here I did good. My new job is way more interesting than my old one. Thank you Lord!

So what's next? Presumably more people I love will die, and more kids will come. My old family will drift further away, and even visiting will become more and more expensive and difficult, and infrequent. Not sure if I'll ever get a bigger house or a promotion though, I think I've probably peaked there. So basically it's all downhill from here until death. And what's the point of it all? Beats me.

But in the meantime at least we have GH (he's dead too):


By chanting the names of the Lord and you'll be free
The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see
Chanting the names of the Lord and you'll be free
The Lord is awaiting on you all to awaken and see

Popout
Feb 27, 2008 10:09 PM
The Hand of Hashem, wo wo wo wo_
_So my Rabbi gave a little shiur tonight on the different ways the Rishonim understood 'ein mikroh yotzei midei peshutoh' (a verse doesn't stray from its simple meaning). Rashi always takes a very literal view, whereas the Ibn Ezra and Rashbam are more willing to say that phrases can be metaphorical. Fairly basic stuff. Then I asked, 'surely even Rashi would interpret phrases such as 'God walked' or 'God smelt (the sacrifice)' as metaphorical?' To my surprise he answered not at all, and that Rashi was most probably a corporealist. Turns out I knew this, Marc Shapiro has a few pages on this topic, with lots of proofs and arguments that not just Rashi but many people and scholars before the Rambam believed this. The famous proof about Rashi is from Shemos 7:5:

"5 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth My hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them.'"

RASHI: 'My hand': An actual hand (yad mamash) to smite them.

Now I suppose you could kvetch away and say that Rashi just means that God would create a giant hand to hit the Egyptians with but that doesn't seem very likely. Poshut peshat (ayn rashi yotzei midei peshutoh?) in Rashi is that he believed God had a body, albeit a very refined, very large and special body.

OK, so we have moved on since then. But isn't it amazing that one of the greatest Rishonim ever had such a strange view? According to yeridas hadoros, shouldn't a Rishon have a clearer conception of God than we do?

The answer my friends is simple.

Yersidos Hadoros is nonsense, and Rashi knew as much about God as anyone else does (or ever did). Which is precisely nothing at all.

See how simple it all becomes when you accept reality?
Feb 27, 2008 10:09 PM
Older singles_
Ha!

Read this article. Money quote:

"My advice is this: Settle! That’s right. Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling “Bravo!” in movie theaters. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go. Based on my observations, in fact, settling will probably make you happier in the long run, since many of those who marry with great expectations become more disillusioned with each passing year. (It’s hard to maintain that level of zing when the conversation morphs into discussions about who’s changing the diapers or balancing the checkbook.)"

Exactly what I always say. Except that it's not settling. It's just being less picky.

Can you older singles understand that?

ITS NOT SETTLING. ITS BEING LESS PICKY.

Show me a single in their mid to late thirties, who has been dating for 10+ years but just hasn't found Mr or Mrs Right and I GUARANTEE you that (barring any metal illnesses) the problem is that they are TOO DAMN PICKY. I'd bet my bottom dollar on it.

Of course the singles themselves will deny this outright. 'I'm not looking for Mr Perfect, just Mr Perfect for me' (Ester K actually once wrote that).

When are you older singles going to understand?

THERE IS NO MR (OR MRS) PERFECT FOR YOU. IT DOESN'T EXIST. OR RATHER, IT DOES EXIST IN SPADES, BUT YOU'RE JUST TOO DAMN PICKY TO NOTICE IT.

I know you think you're settling, but you aren't so perfect yourself. Yet you have hidden qualities. And guess what? So does the person you think your settling for. You're slightly overweight, have some personality quirks, and don't have the best job in the world. So that guy you dated was balding, a bit chubby and wasn't on the partner track? So what?! You think you're so much better than him? Well you're not. You're just picky.

I have no sympathy for older singles. The solution to their woes is ENTIRELY in their own hands. Stop being so damn picky and you'll find that there are legions of suitable partners out there for you. I guarantee it.
Feb 24, 2008 12:19 PM
Top Ten Reasons why Judaism rocks and Orthodoxy sucks_
I'm finally coming to the realization of what I truly believe. Judaism rocks, but Orthodoxy sucks.

Why does Judaism rock? Here are some random reasons, in no particular order. Skeptics will no doubt point out that for each of these there is a downside, or maybe another religion has this too. Sure, but taken all together they are hard to beat. Note: none of this has anything to do with whether the religion is true or not.

1. Ancient and venerable religion which introduced and / or popularized some very world changing notions such as social justice, morality and one God who created the world for good.

2. The Neviim didn't care about the political order of the day, and weren't afraid to criticize the ruling powers for immorality or lack of ethics.

3. We don't insist that all infidels must convert to gain salvation. This is a major plus which is often over looked.

4. Even though we say we are the chosen people, the fact is that Tenach is full of stories of the Jews behaving very badly indeed, and God punishing us terribly. The whole chosen people thing is really that God liked Avraham, but then by the time we get to the yetziat mitzrayim, the Jews are basically a bunch of whiny, complaining annoying people, who at almost every turn annoy the hell out of Moshe and God and only narrowly escape getting totally destroyed. Pretty much like nowadays actually.

5. Halachot have evolved to be quite moral and sensible (on the whole). For a three thousand year old tradition, this is pretty damn good! People compare halachah to modern Western liberalism. Well duh! Go compare it to any other 3,000 year old system.

6. Jews have been the ultimate victims. But we haven't succumbed to despair or victimhood, like some ethnic groups. On the contrary, Jews are as energetic, optimistic and witty as ever. That's pretty cool.

7. Judaism is pretty flexible. If you want to get really mystical, there's plenty in there for you. If you prefer strict rationalism and logic, you've got the Rambam and Brisk. It's very broad, but all is tied together in a common set of practices.

8. The values are excellent. Yes, values are entirely subjective, and it's not a huge chiddush when someone steeped in Jewish values declares Jewish values to be excellent, but I think I have earned some cred as someone whose not afraid to slaughter sacred cows, yet the older I get and the more I see, the more I think that Jewish values are excellent. Not specifically OJ values, but Jewish values.

9. Emphasis on literacy as opposed to war-making is unique in the ancient world, and not so shabby in the modern world either.

And that's straight off the top of my head with no serious forethought at all. As religions (or even secular worldviews) go, Judaism is on or near the top.

So, having said all that, why does Orthodoxy suck?

1. Because it isn't true. Apart from that, I quite like it actually.

So where do we go from here?

I think it's fairly obvious - traditional, observant Judaism, but not Orthodoxy. When people ask me in real life what I am, that's what I say - 'I'm traditional, committed, observant; but not Orthodox'.

And when people ask me why I'm not Orthodox, I reply: 'Because Orthodoxy isn't true'*.


*I think this better than replying 'because I don't believe Orthodox dogma'.
Feb 6, 2008 11:26 PM
My new blog on Modern Orthodoxy_
... isn't going to happen I'm afraid. A few people have been asking about it, but I have come to the conclusion that trying to push the 'Divine Inspiration' theory is the wrong approach. Let's be honest, religion is entirely man made, and nobody knows anything about God. I think that is most likely to be the reality of our situation here.

Could I be wrong? It's certainly possible. Maybe Jesus is really Min Hashamayim. Could be.

However, that's not to say that religion is completely useless. On the contrary, it's abundantly clear that people need religion. So maybe some kind of Reconstructionst (neo) Orthodoxy makes sense. I might do a blog about that some day.