Cannabis Chassidis

free the weed.

2011-12-20T10:28:00.000+02:00

The PDF of the Jerusalem Edition of Cannabis Chassidis is now FREE, here at

http://www.mediafire.com/?l5428g3cv1uaol6,7ab0sayb0gjue4i

and on the piratebay. If you can help seed it there, i'd appreciate it.

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6900374

Swords into Ploughshares

2011-10-19T22:09:00.003+02:00

The range of righteous use of drugs: from swords to plowshares.

It came up in conversation at sukkahfest this year with some people who will remain anonymous for the sake of their professional reputations: One of them used to smoke spliffs EVERYDAY, for the sake of staving off the vampires, and keeping Babylon at bay. As an adult, living and working somewhere relatively wonderful rather than hard urban streetz, he hardly ever smokes weed at all, except at perfect moments where it makes sense to, like a holiday chill. And one of us spoke up and said

"Aha! It's like the secret of swords into plowshares!" and we were silent and let implications start hitting.

That is to say: something that in danger times, you need to have with you all the time, but once you're somewhere safe and good, you don't need to throw away-- just change in to something you have around the house, just in case you need it, like all the unabused medicine stored accessibly but not messily in all the medicine cabinets.

The silence passed and the third dude exploded with: "Plowshares are for ground-breaking!They're for breaking ground in your head! Hee hee hee!

Ukiah gets High-ah

2010-09-24T23:07:00.002+02:00

Just confirmed:

Tuesday, at the

Art Center Ukiah
203 south state st.
Ukiah, CA

Cannabis Chassidis presents:
Recreational Messianism vs. Medicinal Rationality;
Extremes might kill you, when are they worth it?

Narrative perspective, followed by Q&A. More details on Sunday. come? Tell people.

Anarchist's Shabbos Cookbook

2010-09-22T05:22:00.002+02:00

Another blog i'm working on-- related to this one, in that it's about radically intelligent relationships to consumption and enjoyment of life:

http://sabeinumituva.wordpress.com

To order copies of Cannabis Chassidis, or to have me speak at your school, temple, or malt-shop, contact Yoseph at Zakifkififim@gmail.com

Enjoy the days!
--yo

Proper-Ganderables

2010-09-14T20:38:00.003+02:00

Making videos for the Hillel Houses and such. First of three:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBItDpCmEpE

The stuff needs to circulate

2010-09-05T04:56:00.002+03:00

Hey! I'm in America, flying cheaply until October 6th-- wanna host me, in your town? Give a ring to zakifkififim@gmail.com, to have me come out to YOUR town, and speak at whatever venue you can set up for me-- Synagogue, bookstore, University, bar, whatever. Thanks!

---Yo

All ye in the Town of Zion must know:

2010-05-05T00:18:00.004+03:00

Cannabis Chassidis On Zion Tour: Jerusalem Events!

Thursday: At Maya's House (e-mail Zakifkififim for adress)

7:00 to 9:30 (Pm)

The mystery and secret of the Sepherotic Powers and context is Totally revealed at last!
(In the context of Shamanic drums, Ishbitz performance, and even an excerpt or two
From C-C-Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs (a memoir) and some appropriate accapella awesomeness, oh yeah!

Expect the sweetest Charoset, and the most liberating maror we can scrounge
Up.
p ` T R `Io Th
32 + 17 = 80-(10)-9-300-10-6-400 = 818 or 32 + 17 = 818 =

Going on in C'naw-awn

2010-02-09T15:22:00.003+02:00

Aleichem Shulem! Cannabis Chassidis Author Yoseph Leib is back in Israel, selling copies to individuals (for 80 shekels) and bookstores (for 100), and is available for appearances and bookings anywhere in Israel through June. To arrange to have him speak at your local bookstore, University, bar or street corner, just Email Atzmos Press at Zakifkififim@gmail.com. He'll be happy to run over with books in his bag to answer questions and amuse children. Just don't ask him if he has any weed, because he doesn't. Do you? No? Oh. Ok.

U.S. bookings from June on outwards are arrangeable now; ask me soon, before I make other plans. Love!
--Yo

Light up against the War (You know the one)

2009-12-11T09:07:00.003+02:00

Light Candles and incite illumination in protest against the War that never ended, the war on Knowing and Realizing our mutual and undeniable humanity. To the death of the god that makes people think they're better than others, death by burning (passion!)

With Blood! and Fire! We will free the Drug War Captives!

---Kabbalistic Ritual to break Medicinal Captives out of Prison (Couldn't hurt, the Cause is just.)

---Buttered Curried Popcorn
(Because Greece never conquered India, or Americas!)

---Music and Culture.

Sunday, 13 December 2009 at 20:00

Sloan = (High/Low Fashion store formerly known as 1929)

corner of Mott and Broome

Where the creative fires don't go out---

Event in Berkely! This Sunday!

2009-11-16T23:50:00.003+02:00

"The Whole World is Drugs"
How California Psychedelia birthed Shlomo Torah.

Sunday, 22 November 2009
16:00 - 19:00
e-mail Zakifkififim@gmail.com for venue details

Cannabis Chassidis Presents: Marihuana Arcana!

2009-08-13T21:17:00.003+03:00

Thu, August 27, 6:00pm – 8:30pm

Vox Pop Cafe (map)

A smorgasbord of local musicians rallying around marijuana religious education through satiric, earnest, and deeply meaningful songs interspersed with excepts from Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs (a memoir) performed by Yoseph Leib, along with a range of other quirky theatrics. Confirmed acts include Nehedar, Crisp Rex, and surprises to follow. Musicians intereste in participating, contact Yoseph at NeedelR@aol.com

Cannabis is now available!

2009-07-23T08:13:00.004+03:00

Cannabis Chassidis:
The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs
(a memoir)

is now on sale in New York
at the following locations:

Vox Pop, in Kensington, Brooklyn (on Cortelyou rd.)

St. Marks Books on 9th st.
Bluestockings on Allen st in the lower east side
The Yippie Cafe on 9 Bleeker in Manhattan
The Yiddishe Arbiters Workman's Circle on 33rd st. in Midtown

Spoonbills on Bedford and North fifth in Williamsburg.
Word in Greenpoint, on Franklin St.

To the stores then! And to order a copy direct, e-mail Zakifkififim@gmail.com. In NY, it will be hand delivered.

I'm doing a very unsophisticated thing, distributing it to bookstores personally for the first few months, before I have someone else make it all production liney. Events in NY and other places will be posted here as soon as they are booked.

If you have a bookstore or other venue for bookselling to reccomend, let me know;
and if you want to host a learning in your community, e-mail away, because i'm in the city for another little bit. We'll be doing a thing at the Yippie Cafe in New York, and the Moishe House in Philadelphia, in October.

As always
more info to come
--Yo

2009-06-30T22:34:00.002+03:00

New York Launch!

The first wave of Cannabis Chassidis hits New York City
THIS THURSDAY. A limited run of the Jerusalem edition have been shipped in, and are going to be on sale at Chulent. We'll have a talk by Yoseph Leib, the author, followed by Q&A witht he audience, and a dramatic reading of a chapter, all this broken up and intermixed with and by the musical stylings of Darshan (i.e. Shir Yaakov and Eden/Ephryme) and Blanketstatementstein Live.

All this goes on this Thursday night at 10pm at the Milinary Shul on 1025 6th Avenue (bet. 38th & 39th St.) See you there?

New York Pentacost

2009-05-28T17:29:00.003+03:00

Tonight: at the Chelsea St Shul (23rd and 8th)

around midnight/1:00 am

Book Reading and Torah exploration re: mattan Torah and the Problem of Drugs when.

Manhattan.

2009-05-25T20:25:00.000+03:00

Books are available in England at

Watkins Esoteric

Joseph's Bookstore

Trotter's Judaica

and I'm in New York. A print run here should be ready in two or three weeks. Reccomend a printer?

The Book is Out

2009-05-07T02:43:00.002+03:00

I've seen the first copies at Olam Qatan Bookstore in Jerusalem. Coming soon to a zion near you.

--Yo

Jerusalem Release Party

2009-05-05T15:43:00.002+03:00

The book is out tonight. On sale exclusively at Olam Qatan Bookstore and Music on Emek Refaim in Jerusalem, we're having some advanced copies and fun at the first of the international release parties, tonight, in the Holy City herself

Cannabis Chassidis:

The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs

[a memoir]

A book-launching with author Yoseph Leib

and special guest musicians The Yiddishe Mountain Boys, and others.

Tuesday Evening, May 5, at 7:30 p.m.

at Maya's house, 21 Caspi St. (on the right

No smoking please. Brownies and Highness welcome

More tour info to follow.

Epilogue as Introduction: the acceptable failures of Drugs and Religion

2009-04-06T10:49:00.004+03:00

(Written in April 2008, this piece was to serve as an epilogue to Cannabis Chassidis, but instead, a modified version of it will be an introduction to the New York edition, in late May 09. It has to do with Pesach a bit. Enjoy!)

So, I’ve come to a header in my relationship with both drugs (marijuana) and religion (judaism) that makes it hard to feel right talking about either. Because i've lost faith in the inherent infallible redemptive power of either, and disillusionment is heartbreaking.

Not that the virtue of either doesn't exist, only that my confidence in pursuing either into the great pit of infinity is now in question. I AM CONCERNED that either death will be a waste of life, and a beckoning call of others into the pit with me. I'm not sure I want to be responsible for that.

Too much of anything, blah blah blah. Too Much is the only way to get intoxicated, the only way to Go Further and innovate, the only way to bring anything new to the table.

For instance, I would like to be the best marijuana smoker ever. Is that a stupid aspiration or what? I would like to be the guy that finds the most effective, holy tradition of Correct Healing Dope smoking thus far, and passes it on. What an utterly wasteful aspiration, no? Rather than feed or clothe orphans, or get involved in progressive technologies, I want to be the great Rebbe of Drugs and marijuana.

What a foolish and dangerous idea, especially if I repent of this path in my old age, crying in my soup about everything I gave up to make this moronic fantasy possible.

R'Nachman bemoans all who gave up too soon, just as they were about to make a breakthrough. But so awkward is the state of standing in between a terror of going too far, and a terror of having never gone far enough.

That's why I like Tai Chi. It lets me balance slowly, and the internal strength it teaches and builds in me let me move confidently fast as well as slow when the times encourage.

I was telling Josh Lauffer once about a fantasy i'd had, about building a rocketship out of Hemp, fueling it with Cannabis to somehow magically project beyond the stars into dimensions inconcievable.

And he sighed, turned aside with a mixture of contempt (for?) and angry heartbreak and said "I remember back when we thought Marijuana had no limitations on how much it could do."

Ah, the smashed dreams of the days when possibility was infinite; how sad to wake up, diseased and smelly, suddenly aware of the distance between the fantasy's clarity and the world one finds oneself in. And that would be fine, if only the fantasy became clearer! But alas, with grass, the fantasy itself fades in the excess, the visionary clarity evaporating into frustrating fog.

I'm sure there's a way of catching that perfect mean, with sacred use of timing, intention and space... but G-d help me and the world, I don't have a tradition of it that I trust, of making the bridge between what shamen used to have down, and what I can use it for, the longer i'm in the great and terrible city.

I feel this way about Judaism too. My relationship to it was always a little cautious, I never felt too compelled to swallow bullshit, only sometimes charmed into understanding it's role and function, it's power and the cool things that can grow from it... But once it felt like my curiousity was so infinite, and now, too much mixed with an expectation and filtering of the self indulgent delusions that our g-d spoke to us. How sad! I was so learned too, but those are always the guys who get tired of things, ones who think they know, think they understand.

Humility is a powerful anti toxin, "what do I really know after all?" But I will not lie, I will not deny the torah that demands revelation, though I will be silent until the other voice has finished speaking. Unless it's changing subjects too fast, or subtly hypnotizing me into submission with it's speed, confidence and assumption.

I don't want to ignore people because of what they are saying, I don't want the warm comforting glow of it to sooth me into submission to a unhelpful direction, into an obedience of spirit to a lesser god. But a g-d i've never yet seen, never yet understood, is mamish the one i'm most hungry for. What i've already understood is a whore, cheap and available. What I've never yet comprehended is a virgin, untouched and longed for. The devil's closed hand, hiding some secret promise, of something that might very well be amazing, who knows?

The terrifying thing to me about religion is that, unlike drugs, the fantasy can become clearer and clearer the more you do it. Is that true, all you folks out there in reader world that have been more and more religious for their entire lives? It seems to me that the more that adults invest in their old fantasies, the more they are really experienced as real. Maybe that's what "a place in the world to come" means: a stronger faith to feel good about once the body is old and falling in strength, (mercy protect us all!) A more developed and refined fantasy, that becomes clear and more potent the more you do it: a perfect drug after all.

I don't know, i'm not an old man, thank G-d. But I sure hope I feel good about life when and if I ever am. I sure hope what I see can give me hope that life is enduring better, closer, somehow, in somekind of super advanced definition and pallette that I can taste to the very last moment . But learning and loving are the only pleasures that life has, and this is the secret of what R' Yehuda Hanasi meant, when he said, "My whole life, I have never benefitted as much as a belt strap’s worth from the world," when in fact, he was one of the wealthiest people around in his day, a known possesor and probably even eater, of many exotic, expensive, and out of season fruits and vegetables. It's not that he didn't taste the world he lived in, only that he saw pleasures through to their source: the one G-d, every moment, teaching and touching something new. Learning and loving implies Teaching and touching.

What's taught, doesn't nessesarily touch. But what touches always teaches.

The religion is taught; the Lord, she touches.

We were learning before, how do you know if something is real? You never want to stop. The easy way one can tell how fake eating, fucking, defeating and opiating are is how much one really does want to stop, but just forgets how to just chew slow, and notice for when it's time. My problem with oversacramentalizing both marijuana and judaism is that I have seen, in both, the point where I do want to stop, or have seen myself consume so much of, that I was made smaller, weaker,and less beautiful than I had been or wanted to be. And it's true about my cynicsms and skeptisms as well: once they make me feel uglier or more trapped, they are still asked to stop, or at least slow down.

Once nice way to be devoted to, but still not consumed by, is to set times for. Having shabbos on shabbos controls my taiva for eternal shabbos, sparing the danger of eternal not-quite-in-the-world, distracted-by-resentmentism, hopefully. So it's true with everything sacred and self indulgent: make times for it, and it won't consume your life, but only make you stronger for the rest of it.

Something you don't want to ever stop at all, even relative to other things you want to do instead, one can't make times for: one has to just do it all the time. So maybe some people appreciate,having work times, having food times, vacation days, retreats and such. It controls the impact a bit.

People use shabbos different ways, and have a right to, according to what they love doing and have to let themselves stop. That's all I want to say about THAT.

But yeah, Josh told me a great Torah by my engagement party. I asked about the mystery of the conflict between fantasy and actuality, as far as in a relationship. How much does fantasy have to be supressed to be able to see actuality?

And he said, no, it can't just be that way,

When Hashem first split Adam, The Zohar says
It was not for the sake of keeping Adam separate
but for letting the two sides of him see
each other

Letting Adam and Chava see and relate to each other/ themselves at last.

And so with the fantasy and the reality of a situation

G-d's unity is the fantasy, the story that is sought after. It makes the romance possible. All romance, all excitement and fear is dependent on a fantasy about what could be, very easily, very soon. That fantasy, born out of memory and hope, is what has moved things forward since forward was invented.

All guidance is about fantasy and protection. Really good guidance comes from those that have seen dreams come true. Cynicsm comes from those who have seen them not. Be careful of the second, because they still might, be careful of the first, because they may yet cause trouble, those dreams, and they may never really work out the way they were hoped for.

And this is what Passover is all about. The freedom was so new and so ancient all at once, and so is the food. The very traditional mixes with the super innovative loophole food, maccaroons and quinoa escaping from faraway places into jewish staples, strange extractions and processes used to banish chametz in fresh way. A vacuum cleaner comes before the traditional wooden spoon and feather, and matza is baked, exactly as long as it has been since they made a technology for it, in either new and purer machines,or the oldest and simplest way, depending on what one holds by.

Cudos to Chabad for outlawing refined oils on Pesach, for out lawing powdered sugar and that kind of poison. I like to think that the unconcious genius of the Rebbes caught that, the transrational insight that can speak when everybody trusts you.

And this for me is the acid test for whether a religion, whether MY religion, is good or evil. If it connects me to and reminds me of the wiser past, gevalt, it's great. If it holds us back from truth and rightness, from treating someone right, and caring for someone in need-- then what good could it be. Same with Drugs. While it's nice to be able to ignore the world, to have a way of doing so safely sometimes, enough is always enough, and it's nice to be able to see over the psychic walls we've built, or just hear over them, in case the world is demanding to desperately not be ignored.

Tinyana Pt. 2: The Scythian-Israel-Cannabis connection (+news and updates!)

2009-04-01T01:06:00.002+03:00

(Appendix II to the work known as Cannabis Chassidis, recently adapted into a book)

Crucial to the history of World Cannabis Distribution were the Scythians. Cannabis Historian Chris Bennet describes:

The Scythians were a barbaric group of pre-Common Era nomadic tribes who are a fascinating example of an ancient cannabis using group. The Scythians played a very important part in the Ancient World from the seventh to first century BC. They were expert horsemen, and were one of the earliest peoples to master the art of riding and using horse-drawn covered wagons. This early high mobility is probably why most scholars credit them with the spread of cannabis knowledge throughout the ancient world. Indeed, the Scythian people travelled and settled extensively throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, Central Asia, and Russia, bringing their knowledge of the spiritual and practical uses for cannabis with them .

Who were these Scythians? Where did they come from? They seem to be Persian/Aryan, according to modern historical evidences , but some say…

While the house of Judah remained in the Promised Land for a time, many have puzzled over the fate and future of the ten tribes of Israel. Where did they go? While the Bible foretold that the tribes of Israel would scatter, literally, to all four directions (Genesis 28:14), the remainder of this article is devoted to connecting many of the exiled tribes of Israel to one largely ignored confederation of tribes which emerged afterward in the region of South Russia: the Scythians. ”

Genesis 48:16 records that Jacob (called “Israel”) blessed Ephraim and Manasseh with these words: “Let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac.” This blessing affirms that these two tribes will bear the name of Isaac upon them throughout history. This had occurred already before the ten tribes were sent into exile.

A prophecy in Amos 7:16 refers to the ten tribes of Israel (i.e. the “house of Israel” in verse 10) as “the house of Isaac.” In ancient times, vowels were not written, so the consonants of Isaac’s name would be “S-C” or “S-K” (dependent on the language in which the word appeared). Applying the prophetic clue in Genesis 21:12, we need to look for the exiled ten tribes of Israel by locating tribes which have Isaac’s name attached to them.

Sound ridiculous? This theory is not even acknowledged on Wikipedia, but it’s got a certain popularity to it, notably endorsed by former New York mayor Ed Koch on a visit to Scotland.

The term “Scythian” came to describe a lifestyle as much as a national ancestry, and all the peoples and tribes in the steppe region came to be known as “Scythians.” The term “Saka” or “Sacae” identifies the Israelite tribes in the region as that name preserves an ancestry from the Israelite patriarch, Isaac.

Secular reports that the Black Sea Scythians avoided the use of swine for any purpose and forbid idolatrous customs substantiates Jeremiah 3:11’s record wherein God stated: “backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah.”

This is dated to approximately 620 B.C., the time when the Scythians had settled into the Black Sea regions. Since Jeremiah 3 records that Israel was then located “toward the north” of Jerusalem, and the Scythians lived to the north of Jerusalem in the Black Sea region, it is apparent that the Scythians were the ten tribes of Israel addressed by God in Jeremiah 3.

The rivers emptying into the Black Sea formerly had names such as the Ister, Tyras, Borysthenes and Tanais. After the Scythians entered that region, these rivers were given new Israelite names based on the name of the Israelite tribe of Dan. The new names of these rivers were the Danube, the Dniester, the Dnieper and the Don. The Israelite tribe of Dan had a tendency to re-name geographical locations after its own tribal name (Joshua 19:47)

The British Israelite movement, which argued that the Scythians are from Israel, and the Saxons are from Scythia, and that’s why the Brittish are holy people too (as if Christ didn’t save them from that kind of thinking?), has been thoroughly savaged by a range of sciences, including geneology and linguistics, leading some to try and argue that if the Lost Tribes didn’t originate the Scythians— many gave up on civilization after the Empires started dispersing everybody, and got together with the coolest liberated tribes they could find.

Historians tell of the mighty emperor Darius, who led his troops
into the steppes with the intention of subduing the Scythians and
adding their territory to his empire.

The Scythians were a nomadic people, and when they learned that Darius’ forces were to descend upon them, they broke camp and began a slow retreat. They moved at such a speed that though Darius’ armies could always descry them on the horizon, they were never able to close in. For days they fled ahead of the invaders—then weeks, months, leaving all the food in their wake destroyed and all the water poisoned; they led the intruding armies in circles, into the lands of neighboring peoples who attacked them, through unbroken deserts where gaunt vultures licked bleached bones. The proud warriors, accustomed to flaunting their bravado in swift, dramatic clashes, were in despair. Darius sent a message with his fastest courier, who was barely able to deliver it to the laziest straggler of the Scythian flank:

“As your ruler,” it read, “I order you to turn and fight!”

“If you are our ruler,” came the reply, scratched carelessly into a
rock face they came upon the next day, “go weep.”

Days later, after they had given up all hope, the scouts made out a line of Scythian horsemen charging forward across the plain. They were waving their swords excitedly and letting out great whoops of enthusiasm. Caught unprepared but relieved at the prospect of doing battle at last, the warriors took up their arms—only to discern, in confusion, that the Scythians were not charging their lines, but somewhat to the side of them. Looking closer, they made out that the horsemen were pursuing a rabbit. Upon this humiliation, the soldiers threatened mutiny, and Darius was forced to turn back and leave Scythia in defeat. Thus the Scythians entered history as the most unconquerable of clans by refusing to do battle

Cool folks, right? And for evidence that an Israelitic presence may have affected the Scythian culture profoundly, further excerpt from Chris Bennet’s history:

It could well be that in later times the cannabis smoke had somewhat mellowed the Scythians, and their spiritual leaders directed them towards becoming a more civilized people. The ancient Greek historian Ephorus wrote in the fourth century BC that the Scythians 'feed on mares milk and excel all men in justice'. His comments were followed in the first century BC by Strabo, who wrote that 'we regard the Scythians as the most just of men and the least prone to mischief, as also far more frugal and independent of others than we are.'

(book and tour info to follow, in time, inshallahzrat Hashem)

tinyana: the mysteries of hysteries in histories.

2007-05-27T17:03:00.000+03:00

So, looking over this whole piece of work, it becomes clear to me what's missing.

I actually answered very few of the questions I raised here, so i'm just going to take a minute to wrap a few up.

What happened to Marijuana in history?

I apologize for my ignorance of the Arab/Islamic history of Marijuana. No real description of the evolution and devolution of Cannabis culture in Israel and Jerusalem is going to be whole without that detail, of the last two thousand years of history. It's a problem with Israel, the two thousand middle years of her life are blurred over in the Jewish folk memory, and while that isn't something inherently shameful, it is a bit dishonest and regrettable, especially if I'm trying to uncover a hidden history.

I tried in my early days in Jerusalem to find out about the Morrocan and Yemenite religious jewish cannabis tradition, and was always a little heart broken at how unseriously pious oriental Jewish Mystics who DID smoke hashish would take the substance itself.

I think much of this is because of the internal dissonance that jewish mystics and mysticsm sometimes have about the world that gives them their revelations. There's so many trips in the Bible, Talmud and onwards about rejecting foriegn influence, even as much as there is about accepting and even embracing the gifts of the G-d in exile, as in Jeremiah, and the Babylonian Talmud.

But the repatriation of Israel might be responsible for fucking up our heads about this, the cultural confusion about What's Jewish in Morrocan Jewish Tradition and What's Morrocan, even as both are threatened, ridiculed, and consequently jealously defended as sacred norms.

But even in Morroco, the "serious" and straight people wouldn't smoke hash, and even in the Islamic world, it was very criminalized and repressed, the devils hash. Why?

My journeys in Israel have been limited by my language skills and affinity groups, but there's a few important groups that I feel like I need to deal with to look at the mystery of how/why Marijuna was demonized and criminalized, and what this has to do with the mystery of civilization, and the emerging fringe cultures of Israel and beyond?

When was marijuana first criminalized?

My history sense is mythic more than factual; such is the nature of growing up in a tradition that describes giants and half divine monsters as part of the historical narrative. I will not apologize for this, nor do I consider it inauthentic. History and the world are weird, I don't know how things worked and what happened, all I can relate too is my family's cosmic descriptions. I can reject or re-understand the myths however I want, and share my understandings with whoever else is dealing with a similar paradigm. I am happy to surrender the specificity of these myths under the revelation of more, lets say, objective truths and discoveries, yay for the clarifications about What Could Have Happened! This is something I want to call a kind of Mythic Evolutionsim, where a creationist and archaic narrative is allowed to be confronted by the emerging scientific paradigm, and though it does not reject what it used to know and think about what was and what is, it is able to grow and re-understand itself in the face of all the new discoveries.

Which is pretty much the way Jewish communal scholarship has worked in the periods where "enlightenment" (that is, surrender to a wider population's perceptions) was not imposed, but allowed to gently sink in as the world we were around would seem to advance beyond us.

This is what happened in the Sephardic/Arab world, where scientists and philosophers like Avicenna and Averroes were taken very seriously by Religious Jewish Scholars and Doctors (like the Rambam), their works, translated into Hebrew before anyone bothered to translate them into Latin.

Of course, mysticsm and science were less differentiated back then. Science was less concerned with liberation from religious paradigms than working around and with them. How do you know that you're really free from your parents? it's safe to come back to their house, even accpet their advice without being quieted or destroyed through it.

All that said, it's clear to me that the cradle of life is something called by the ancients of my tradition the Garden of Eden, and that's where the earliest strains of Cannabis, if not all vegetation and humanity, originate, by definition.

Ah, but where is the Garden of Eden? The placement descritption of it in the Bible is physically imposible, somewhere floating above and below these different rivers, meeting in the place where none of them intersect. Josh Lauffer brings down the midrash that all vegetation is still nourished from it, all the waters that feed anything still come from it, making it a mythically really place, not unlike Santa's workshop in the North Pole--- all those toys really do come from the same place, on some profound and true level-- Christmas really does happen, and the fountain of all the good in the world might as well have a name.

There's much historical question by those official and proffessional speculators of history, where did Cannabis come from?
My cultural chauvinist impulse is to say the Jordan river valley, and there isn't really any damning proof saying for sure otherwise, so I could totally rest on that mythic delusion for as long as I want, until some clearer truth proof comes along. THAT SAID, Chinese texts and pottery have the earliest recorded mentions of it. This is one of the two thoroughest histories i've found on the internet:

It is not yet clear where cannabis was first cultivated.

Perhaps the people of Central Asia did so themselves –
we must not be led to too readily assume that it must have been the more 'advanced' Chinese who would necessarily have preceded their more 'backward' Central Asian neighbours of the great steppes in using
and subsequently cultivating hemp
as either a fibre plant
or a drug.

Central Asia, a vast land of deserts, steppes and oases is, despite its name, usually seen as of marginal historical influence,
a kind of cultural vacuum
between the great civilisations of China to the east,
India to the south
and the Middle East to its west.
Yet, very early on, thriving trade routes passed through the region and these became known as the Silk Roads, on account of the importance of Chinese silk for both Muslim and Western merchants.

It is known to archaeologists that Central Asia was an important center
for the transmission of new discoveries and religious ideas from prehistoric times onwards.

The hemp plant,
being of major technological importance as a fibre
and being one of the most influential psychoactive plants in human culture,
was most likely a key trade item
from a very early date.

The anthropologist Weston La Barre was of the opinion that cannabis use goes as far back as the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) period
as part of a religio-shamanic complex.

Certainly
the use of the plant had already spread across an area stretching from Romania to China,
secondly south to India and on to south-east Asia,
and last, and certainly not least,
to western Asia, from where it diffused to Africa, Europe and eventually the Americas.

Somehow, Marijuana came to Egypt, Israel, etc. As mentioned before, the Hebrew word "bisamim Rosh" to describe the spices in the sacred annointing oil, implies a certain universal preciousness, spices known and sought in every country, in every culture.

The history of when Cannabis is tolerated is very interesting to me.

It was a big controversy in Islam, back and forth, is Cannabis harram or not?

Everybody (well, except for rabbeinu Hafiz and his chevre) knows: Wine is Harram in Islam, because it intoxicates. So it's a question: what's called intoxication, and what's called clarity?

(Yeah, I know, I said it was finished, and it is: there's just an old Chassidic tradition of tagging on the surplus manuscripts at the end of a book. It's called "Tinyana," an aramaic term literally meaning: "we learned it somewhere." I'm just supplementing, filling out the gaps... ok? ok.)

One more special, message to go, and then i'm done, and I can go home

2007-04-25T08:43:00.000+03:00

We've been using the question of drugs in Torah to talk about the mystery of Torah as forms of drugs. In the context of this, one thing that has come up has been the response of non-drug users to junkies like us, the responses of our families to our indulgences, that is to say, all the nations of the world and their issues with jews.

Why not stop a junkie from being a junkie? because maybe dope is the purpose of creation

But really, if you are a junkie C"vS, I bless you that when something better comes along, you should have the strength and will to drop all your habits and run after her with all your power, in an instant, without hesitation.

But why bother? It's only worth quitting, if the drug is holding back good from coming into your world, i.e., making you feel less free rather than more free. It's good to check in every so often with the self, just to check: Is this what I really want to be doing? For my sake, or for yours.

So. We've talked so much about why to smoke weed. But Why stop smoking weed?

The worst thing marijuana does is make it harder to feel outside.

It's a blessing when feeling is Too Much, but a curse when things are so good, and I can't even really experience it, because my nerves are too numbed.

Because dope may not be the purpose of the world. That is to say, no a midrash ha ikkar elah ha maisei. The midrash is how we give it over, the pill we give each other to swallow, and that's we don't doresh nothing on Tisha b'Av, because we are fasting from the drugs we're usually taking to make life feel good, that is, the Torah's that
let us handle it.

Mostly Torah's really good, right? Kurt Vonnegut z"l famously wrote"

"Live by the foma* that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy." — The Books of Bokonon 1:5"

*Harmless untruths

The only problem is when the foma stop being harmless, which, you know, has happened in every religion at least once or twice, even in the best of them. With Judaism, notably the theology of the Gentile, I'm really sorry about that. I don't hink we've got it worked out so well, but it comes, this delusion and many others, from confusing Truth with Tenets of Belief.
Where an idea about how to ignore certain people, their demands and the priorities, can be liberating, a problem inevitably comes when we decide to ignore them forever.
The Buddists in Tibet saw this, when the masses of farmers offended by the meditative oblivion of the Monks in the mountains were easily motivateable into becoming Communist armies, ready to force attention through atrocity. I do believe that maybe something similar happens with the Jews whenever we depend on our fufillment of our required responsibilities, be they to man or God, to save us from having to be pay attention to the vulgar, dirty world, and it's music and priorities. I totally vibe with the need to create sacred spaces, not easily violable, for the sake of endless focus on The Holy, AND the crying children will become angry police if they are ignored for too long, if their desires are called petty, and their appetites dismissed as disgusting.

I hope that Torah is still growing, and able to adapt back, to it's very source, all the new info and wisdom about how to live, all together, better, and that the holy arrogance of those called leaders won't hold the kids back from being able to save their own, all our own, lives. Amen.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The brain can be negatively affected by too much psychedelics over time. So what's the fixing?

Ayurveda has answers! One, Calamus, has been mentioned before. The more powerful one we haven't brought up yet, that would be his majesty Chaparrel.

Bitter and deeply cleansing, it's a hardcore thing to fast on, but there you go: it takes the residue of excess psychedelicatessen out of the brain and liver in a quick, vicious punch. It's bitter as all get out and VERY ungrounding, but y'know why? the psychedelic motarot stuck in the recess of the brain are ungrounding, and the process of cleaning them out comes with living them again.

Because rarely do we metabolize the whole thing, when we trip, nebuch. often we end the trip with food or more drugs, something that pushes away the trip into the recesses of our spines or wherever these things get kept until the worms get to trip off our flesh.

Bitterness foods are the "healthiest", as long as it's not bitter from rancidity. Gurdieff says suffering is the most beneficial thing in the world, as long as it's voluntary. And therein lies the rub, the once mentioned difference between good medicine and bad poison: how much the heart is in it. That's the easy way to tell if something is genuinely good for you or not, on any level, nutritionaly and spiritually, sexually and morally. Listen really close to the reaction when you taste a little bit. Remember that it's perfectly ok, and maybe even ideal, to stop, leave and get away. And then, if you really want to continue, continue as slow as you can, the better it is, tasting and chewing. This is the ideal way to live, tasting and chewing so slow, as if there was really nothing else to do, and now where else to go.

Crying children, angry landlords, bosses or soldiers are standing at the boundary of this ideal, for sure, and I wonder how to deal with it honestly and righteously. I know people who just don't eat very much, for the sake of not having to hurry when they do. Lord! Give us confidence in the value of our time, give us confidence in how much you appreciate and long for our pleasure and true satisfaction, amen.

And that's why I'm not going to smoke herb... today. Life is so nice, lately, y'know? I've been around all kinds of beautiful people, and I really want to feel what it's like to touch them, really feel that contact as deeply as possible.

Yeah, Now that I'm done with Cannabis Chassidis, i'm gonna stop smoking grass for a little bit. Or maybe forever.

That's actually, secretly the real reason I started this blog: Otherwise, I have a moral responsibility to smoke weed with people, in order to give over the Torah's of how to do it "right." Now, having said all this, i'm free. Maybe now I can go get that job at the bank that I always wanted---

---staaam!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So once, I brought Dan Sieradski to Micha Odenheimer's house for a shabbos day meal. They lived near each other, both valued human rights and progressive Torah; I figured they'd get along, and was curious for what they'd talk about.

So, the question of Daniel Merkur's Mushroom/Manna theory comes up. Dan talks as if it's Pshat that the Manna MUST HAVE BEEN mushrooms, and Micha is like, I dunno man, it's kind of a mythic metaphor. Trying to prove out what it was is kind of like trying to prove out how the splitting of the sea could have happened naturally. Doesn't literalizing the Manna take away from what's symbolizing?

Manna has been understood as a labor metaphor for a long time.

Remember when
the food was free?
came down from heaven and we always had
just enough.

Everyone knows, why is there war in the world? Because people are afraid, that if they don't war, they won't eat, and that's part of why the hebrew word for bread (Lechem) is so like the hebrew word for fighting (Locheim).

There were tribes that never learned violence, because they had no fear of starving. A friend was telling me about a Polypensian tribe that actually would have these big, ritual land trades once a year, just for fun. They had no problem with internal fighting, no language for physical violence within their own species--

...and they were very into touching. Babies would not be put down for the entire first years of their lives, and everyone would hug each other hello.

Another tribe, on an island not far away, had the opposite tradition. Babies were put down unto blankets or something shortly after birth, and pretty generally left to crawl around on their own, or tied up and hung on trees. affection was uncommon for members of that tribe...

...and they were into cannibalism. They had less land, and food was scarcer, so they
grew up meaner. G-d help us all, save us from hunger and disassociation!

What we need the drugs for is to learn how to accept a new reality faster. We may not have time or luxury to feel like we don't have time or luxury to appreciate life, without fear...

One of the problems with excess psychedelics is the fear, the paranoia, that comes from weakened, debilitated Kidneys.
That's the danger of drugs, if they stop you from touching each other so deeply, with so much presence, chas V Shalom, and lock us into our little trips more than anyone wants. We need the drugs for better things; wilder imaginations, married to cosmic awareness and sensitivities, expanded, sensitve and adaptable moralities, grounded in the golden rule, married to our roots and souls, the Torah understood very deeply. We need to be righteous, and Tzidkes depends on harmony, sensitivity balanced with dominance--

This cannot be accomplished through dogmatism and legal proclamations, our hearts themselves have to be married to the sensitivity principles, and it has to be an open marriage, with room for all the new Law and principle coming in.

Marijuana, Mushrooms, LSD, and other friends in the family, are so good for opening the self to profound realization, and the value of that cannot be over-emphasised.
Yoga, Tai Chi, dancing, all these things is crucial, however, for deeper feeling and appreciation of the life, and must be incorporated in to anyone and everyone's life-- somekind of movement, that is not panicked and purely recreational.
This is what Shabbos steps have to be.

Also, food. Good food. Whole Grains! Legumes! Vegetables! Without these, all the drugs won't do much to help, because they can only work with what they have. Eat real food! Smoking weed can only feel as good as the body is capable of feeling. Maybe it can help transcend assumptions and situations, but really, take care of yourselves, and each other! It's really important! Hug! Massage, softly, slowly, with care! You are the healings and the Life that G-d depends on and dreams of, You are the sacred names that G-d has wirtten in his Tephillin, and really have to treat yourselves that way.

It's so basic that we've, as a community, become embarrassed to remind and remember about it, but really! The medicine has to be whole, and we have to be honest with ourselves about which medicines are really helping, and what's just me banging my head agianst the wall because I don't know what else to do, chas v' shalom.

When you get high, want it to be really good? Then let it move you, let it dance you and swing you! Obey the inspiration, and sing that song, draw that picture, write that idea down before you have a chance to forget it! Do something so fun, the munchies don't interest as much as the sacred activity you're engaged in.

Yaakov Leib Hakohen brought down a Zohar recently, saying: "Don't tell your dreams to anyone who doesn't love you, because it gives them power over you." I feel like this applies to psychedelics too-- you can't do them except around people who love you, who you love, and the upside is, sometimes just sharing a dream with someone is what compells them to loveyou.

There's been a problem with our reaction to the holy and the sublime sometimes, when it gets too heavy, we tend to break the space. So, sometimes we get high, and just shove that special experience into some lamer situation. Why? We're afraid of having our hearts broken, the the holy will push us away, chas v' shalom. That once we are overwhelmed with the love, to the point where we can no longer hold anything back from her, we will lose grace in her eyes, and we'll be left, vulnerable and wounded, the desire for us lost once we stop being mysterious. This is the secret of marriage, how do I know that you'll still hold the space for me once i've given you everything? Don't fear this, if you can help it, be inspired, and let the sublime voice of the amazing happening in between you and the divine be! And from that silence, the silence of trust and the end of fear, something new from somewhere completely other can sometimes be heard.

On Har Sinai, we are forgiven for the Golden Calf. What's the biggest sin in the golden Calf building? Besides tearing the earings off of the women's ears, is just that we wouldn't hold the space for a little bit longer, wouldn't listen just a little bit closer to what the voice wanted to say. We were so afraid of dying.

Of the four who ascend to Pardes, only Ben Azzai is praised. R Akiva ascended and descended in peace, bully for him, But Ben Azzai let himself die! He didn't run away.
And later on, R Akiva atones for not Dying in Pardes by Dying in a Pardes of torture somewhere else... I guess it wasn't his time yet. But Ben Azzai, of him it is written.

"Precious/valuable
in the eyes of the LORD
is the death of his Saints" (Ps 116:15)

Ben Azzai, despite bemoaning his not having learned more from R' Akiva, disagrees with him openly on a number of issues, on most which he has the last word.

Akiva declared Bar Kokhba to be the Messiah, God's annointed one, the redeemer of Israel, King of the Jews, descendant of David.

Ben Azzai, a colleague of Akiva said to him:

"Akiva,
grass will grow
in your cheeks
(i.e. you will long be dead and buried)

before the Messiah comes."

That is to say, Moshiach can't come while R' Akiva lives. Why? R Nachman brings down

Anyone who sets a date or a time for when Moshiach will come
It's for sure, without question, that Moshiach will not come then

Or maybe, it's for the same reason Moshiach can't come while Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev is in the world: As long as everything is fine, good enough, Moshiach doesn't have to come. This is what R' Akiva's Torah emphasised, and as long as Moshiach is for sure coming, then who needs him to come?

And this is the main "problem" with coping, accepting, surviving, if it's a problem at all.

One of the traditional issues in different uses of drugs. Some drugs make us OK with the problem, other drugs make us very aware of the problem. And the best drugs do both., L chayim.

But this is the problem also with accepting our community and our Torah as is, something Ben Azzai maybe has more trouble with that R' Akiva

Perhaps Ben Azzai's and Akiva's political differences are rooted in a more fundamental disagreement.

The Talmud notes:

"Rabbi Akiva says:
'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
This is the great principle of the Torah.'

Ben Azzai says:
'These are the generations of mankind.
This is a greater principle of Torah.'"

The Hebrew for "Love your neighbor as yourself" can also be read as
"Love your neighbor who is like you"
- in other words a call for tribal solidarity.

Akiva believed in the primacy of Jewish solidarity
above all over values.
As such he blindly supported a nationalist zealot,
who led the Jews to one of the greatest disasters in their history.

"These are the generations of mankind"
refers to the sentance in the Bible
preceding the genealogy of the descendants of Adam.

The Rabbis note

God
created
only one Adam
so that no person can say:
"My father is greater than yours."

For Ben Azzai, our primary moral imperative is the universal one -
all humanity
is the descendant
of one father Adam,
who is created in God's image. All peoples, Jews and gentiles alike, are equal in God's eyes.

And maybe that's what Moshiach is so frustrated by, and this is the truth that we would rather not have to hear on Har Sinai. What could Hashem have been saying that made us die? What does Ben Azzai see that lets him die?

There is a revelation that comes only once we are secure in the health of our families and our nation, that there is a higher value, and a transcendant truth, of the world and it's unity, beyond the small community called Yisrael. One couldn't call R Akiva racist per se, it's not about blood to him. He marries a convert, and lets go of the ten tribes, saying they're gone forever, and their blood won't save them.

For him, it's about the ideas, the Torah. Those are what make a master race, what make our people immortal and which are so precious that what little water he's given in prison are spilled over his hands so he can make blessings, rather than wasted on drinking. And I think Ben Azzai is saying, even those will be transcended. This Torah, this law-- something better is out there, coming, and he is so desperate to see it.

Ben Azzai talks like the reason he won't get married is because he loves the torah too much. As if R' Akiva didn't love the Torah? I'm reading it like, "I love" IS my torah, so why should I ever get married?

From Moshe Idel

...for some Kabbalists at the beginning of
the Thirteenth Century the major figure was not
R. Aqiva but Ben Azzai, the Talmudic master who
died. For them, the Pardes was not a matter of
intellect, but of the experience of a supreme
light. This Light was not an intellectual or
conceptual light, but an experiential light...

... There is a manuscript text by an unknown
author -
one which I needed some 60 pages to
analyze, so we can only deal witha small part of
it here.

There are some ten lines in it about
Ben Azzai
(who did not return).

"Ben Azzai
peeked and died.
He gazed
at the radiance
of the Divine Presence
like a man with weak eyes
who gazes at the full light of the sun
and becomes blinded
by the intensity of the light that overwhelms him...

He did not wish to be separated,
he remained hidden in it, his soul
was covered and adorned

...he remained where he had cleaved,
in the Light
to which no one may cling
and yet live."
[Quotation approximate]

This text portrays people gazing
not at a Chariot
or a marble throne,
but at the radiance of God
(Tzvi ha Shekinah),

a light
so strong
that no one can bear it.

The idea
of having a great desire to cleave,
as described in the medieval text,
is new.

In ancient literature,
contemplation is of something far away,
across an unbridgeable gap.

There is no idea there of love,
only of awe. Here, however,
we see a trace of a radical change:
the
intensity
of the experience
is linked with a great desire
to cleave
to the radiance
of the Shekinah.

There is a strong experience of union
with the Divine, the result of a desire to enter
and become a part of the Divine realm.
There is an attempt
to enjoy the Divine
without
interruption.

...

So yeah, that's about all there is to say on the subject.

...

And if you believe me when I say that, you probably aren't interested in learning more. There is SO MUCH I didn't get to. just because I wanted to get this book out before the Telapathic Alien Overlords (yimach shimom!) ban it or something. Miriam was not fully explored in this whole narrative, was she?

Smile.

Her Name matters So Much, she is the fixing of the waters, right?

Her son dies from authencity, for refusing to build an idol. That says something about something.
p.s. "what" is a synonym for "something" The two words are completely interchangeable, more or less.

Miriam is the one responsible for the drinking water we had in the desert
and the soul that experiencing ALL THE SUFFERING IN THE WORLD
(acc. to R Nachman. I have no idea where he finds it)
That's the other end of creation.

Some want to say that Miriam is Moshe's mother as well as sister. It's a very deep thing to want to learn out, because she's so big. How popular is her name, in so many different cultures? It's up there with Joseph and Ephraim!

Mary jane
mary jane,
I need you to keep me sane, Maria Maria

All the suffering in the world, and when the power?

She has so much attributed to her, just when she was a kid.
That is, it was her, and all the nashim tzidkanios that she represented, that insisted that the baby boys be born. Why? Out of love for life.

I really feel that Shlomo was a Gilgul of Moshe Rabeinu. He's the one who first makes a handle for the cup that moshe poured, Acc. to Chazal. And the yom Hashimini is called Netzach Netzachim sometimes, isn't it? As I misremembering that?

It's funny how life happens, but, thank the good good lord, it's kept happening. may it long endure and sustain! Amein!

Mariam is what Magydalyne is called in the Greek Scriptures, the Mary being what remains of the long name, as the rest burns off on the road... The same thing happens to all the harsh, sharp names, Yeshu is hardend into Jesus, and then softened in the far east back into softened into Isa, Yoseph gets complicated into Guisseppe, and then quietly allowed to become Jose', or just Joe...

Though I was very shocked when I first heard of a Gentile Latino named Miriam from Puerto Rico. I was so sure she was a secret Marrano, and though she never discounted the possibility... the name spreads nice.

I had a vision once, of R' Nachman, or anybody else in that tradition, traveling to America, on one of their strange journeys to anywhere, hanging out with a Mexican farmhand. Talking, softly, in simple words, because neither really speaks the other's language. So all the Mexican can do is offer the Rebbe some smoke off his joint. And when the rebbe asks "Vos Ist?" Jose' can only smile beatifically and say "Mariajuana!" To which the rebbe can only close his eyes and reflect on all that a name means, and how familiar the taste feels.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Waters are Not Bitter, anymore, thanks G-d. By not, I mean the bitter must be consumed to balance out the sweet, and is so sweet even. Have you ever sat and just held wheat grass jews, oops, i mean juice on your tongue? So sweet.

Speaking of sweet, you know what part of davening I love the most, on any given shabbos?
Aniyim Zimiros. The whole thing is sublime, every line is a song, and the last stanza!

And my blessing
Nod to me your head (Lord)

And It,
take it to yourself
Like some Heady spices

May my speech, please be sweet to you

Because/then/if my soul longs for you.

And with that, this volume of Cannabis Chassidis closes. It's not like the topic is really exhausted, but it's like tachanun: you've got to stop somewhere.

Feel free to write your own sifre chassidis, by the way, to comment in any of the essays above, to criticize, attack or update anything expressed here. I appreciate so much the steady, heady, presence of everyone reading this stuff, and please be blessed to find your ways in Torah, that your paths in Torah should be clear, and the subtlest language should be there for you to be understood, all too well, by all who encounter you. Stay High and stay happy, and remember:

It's very important to be happy
And the only thing more important is to be free
R' Nachman

And i'd say further, the only thing more important than being free is just to be at all.

Updates on my next projects will be here, if not on www.sevenfatcow.wordpress.com. One will be a nutrition/torah blog, to be named, the other will be too controversial to do under my own name. Don't ask me about that one.

And, yeah, I guess I'll see you in Jerusalem, where I hope you'll school my ass on everything I don't know, bimhaira biyameinu Amen

(p.s. If it wasn't said clearly enough, let me say it now: Love is the most powerful psychedelic. What else compells us to change our minds, ever? Be blessed with an unending supply, of the purest, finest, freshest Schoirah, coming out of you, coming towards you, as needed, as wanted. amen, Selah)

silence if that's the best you can do

2007-04-24T22:20:00.000+03:00

Just right before the very last post, i'm dropping this bit of news:

LSD as Therapy? Write about It, Get Barred from US

BC psychotherapist denied entry after border guard googled his work.

Scary stuff, to me. Being penalized for discussing psychedelic experience on the internet = THEY're trying to scare us into being quiet.

Which, I suppose we are allowed to do. Even advised to do.

'Alchemist's dictum'

When Feldmar looks back on what has happened, he concludes that he was operating out of a sense of safety that has become dated in the last six years, since 9-11. His real mistake was to write about his drug experiences and post this on the web, even in a respected journal like Janus Head. He acknowledges that he had not considered posting on the Internet the risk that it turned out to be. So many of his generation share his experience in experimenting with drugs, after all. He believed it was safe to communicate about the past from the depth of retrospection and that this would be a useful grain of personal wisdom to share with others. He now warns his friends to think twice before they post anything about their personal lives on the web.

"I didn't heed the ancient Alchemists' dictum, 'Do, dare, and be silent,'" Feldmar says. "And yet, the experience of being treated as undesirable was shocking. The helplessness, the utter uselessness of trying to be seen as I know myself and as I am known generally by those I care about and who care about me, the reduction of me to an undesirable offender, was truly frightening. I became aware of the fragility of my identity, the brittleness of a way of life.

"Memories of having been the object of the objectifying gaze crowd into my mind. I have been seen and labeled as a Jew, as a Communist, as a D. P. (Displaced Person), as a student, as a patient, a man, a Hungarian, a refugee, an émigré, an immigrant.... Now I am being seen as one of those drug users, perhaps an addict, perhaps a dealer, one can't be sure. In the matter of a second, I became powerless, whatever I said wasn't going to be taken seriously. I was labeled, sorted and disposed of. Dismissed."

This is the secret of "shtok! Kacha Aleh b' machshava;" The invocation that the Holy One Blessed be he uses to silence Moshe Rabeinu when the questions go to the core of Who He Is and What's Being Hidden from sight of the past.

It doesn't fly as a real answer, only as a caution: If you want to be part of the world, as it is now, you can't ask that.

But, if you want to change the world, you might have to.

Zeh Torah!
V zeh Sachrah?

"This is the Torah!
and this is it's reward?"

I don't believe Moshe Rabeinu is asking if this is really the Torah or not, although Elisha Ben Abuyah might be. Moshe seems annoyed at the reward, Acher, just seems skeptical that he's playing the game right.

This is Eli Wiesel's criticsm of Acher/Elisha Ben Abuyah: His heresy was not a humanist one.
Whereas seeing G-d's injustice to the righteous might provoke one to believe that G-d is not just (Moshe's issue, upon seeing the future of R'Akiva, tortured to death for giving Torah over.)
It might provoke someone else, someone more connected to their sense of surrender to The Way than to their sense of outrage and justice, to think, hm, maybe we're just playing the Game wrong. Maybe the Torah that R' Akiva is teaching isn't really the Torah, and that's why G-d is abandoning him.

This second opinion is more traditional in many ways, and more logical, cold, reptilian and adaptative. And so, Acher counsels children to go and become anything but Torah scholars. He betrays Jews keeping the Sabbath secretly to the Romans, so that their loophole to feel like they're keeping Shabbos is taken away.

Eli Wiesel reads this as Acher deciding that G-d's unfairness means that he can and should act unjustly, siding with the winners against the losers. He wants to like Acher, to find sympathy with his cause and his discovery in heaven, but decides that he cannot, when faced with Acher's hostility towards his people, and his Roman sypathising.

We have to have a higher standard for G-d and his world, yes we do. Maybe our standard of what better is can be adjusted from time to time, but the most sinister and malicious thing we can is accept the wrong justice of the world as if it were true justice. This is like accepting Pharoh or Nimrod as God.

I was in a very friendly restaurant in Berkeley, one time, this past fall. I was talking to one of the workers there, for a moment, about his "we will not be silent" T-shirt, in english and arabic.

He started telling me about a friend of his who got stopped at the airport for wearing one, and was not allowed on to the plane until he changed. I laughed, to cynically defuse the passion of the moment, and said, "boy, I know what not to wear when I go to the airport."

And he looked at me seriously, and said, "That's really all they want. That we should be silent in public, while they do whatever they will."

Which, lets us live. Lets us survive.

"I didn't heed the ancient Alchemists' dictum, 'Do, dare, and be silent,"

Did you think Mesiras Nefesh for Torah meant saying an extra daf of daf yomi? The only people I know of in Jewish world being genuinely Mesiras Nefeshdik for their Torah is Neturei Carta, and see how Am Yisrael treats them for it!

That's because the modern Jewish religion, G-d bless us all, from the Misnagdim to the Chasidim, is based on not rocking boats, and not saying but that which has been approved by the most conservative amongst us. This is a survival technique, used by luminaries like R' Yochanan Ben Zakkai and Rabbi Steven Wise, Yimach Shimo. It doesn't always work, and when it doesn't, it's especially embarrassing.

On the other hand, who wants to die for something as shallow as an ideal? Better to live and know quietly, maybe, right?

But that's exactly what the forces in the world obscuring truth want. That they shouldn't have to get their hands dirty killing us, and that we should learn to keep our traps shut.

There's a time for everything, but really: you may want to consider being willing to die, get arrested, deported, or beaten, for the sake of your Torah. And if your Torah doesn't feel worth it, then, well... you may want to go find some that is, no matter what.

"Memories of having been the object of the objectifying gaze crowd into my mind. I have been seen and labeled as a Jew, as a Communist, as a D. P. (Displaced Person), as a student, as a patient, a man, a Hungarian, a refugee, an émigré, an immigrant.... Now I am being seen as one of those drug users, perhaps an addict, perhaps a dealer, one can't be sure. In the matter of a second, I became powerless, whatever I said wasn't going to be taken seriously. I was labeled, sorted and disposed of. Dismissed."

Water? I don't even KNOW 'er!

2007-03-12T20:46:00.000+02:00

BalSem/Doktor's warning: This piece is a long one, you may want to print it out and read it over yom tov or something.

Next-to-last: conclusion

Water is important. no spit sperlock!

But it's really important when you're tripping, both for drinking, sweating, soaking, and, of course, as a divine metaphor.

Because, everybody knows, how many waters are there? lots. Just One. And I feel as if unified conciousness is a crucial part of the psychedelic experience. The only alternative is paranoia, and eternal war.

Water is a What at War. Or a What at World.

Your DNA is carrying the inspiration, the oil floating on the water. Psychedelics can help you alter your DNA, and grow however you want to grow, because the water in you becomes shooken up, open to all kinds of new changes. All the information and brilliance in the world is reflected through life, the only thing that perceives. And all life grew out of water.

Julius Lester shlita did a very cute version of God's War with Tehom at the beginning of creation, it's surprisingly intense! It recounts the story of how G-d had to kill the first created thing in order to create a world, and her refusal to die, to no avail, alas, but she is still trying to come back together, even as the waters above to come down so individualistically, every raindrop and snowflake it's own unique miracle.

The last Torah I ever heard from Dovid Hertzberg Z"l was that the water from above and below do come together sometimes, everytime a tzaddik cries. Have I told you that one before? It's deeper to me now. Why should a tzaddik cry? But that's when and how the above and below get bridged. I suppose a rasha laughing does the opposite?

No, because laughter doesn't make water move. That is the definition of life, "what moves water." At least water thinks so, any everyone born from her, living through and desperate with her, for her.

Laughter doesn't make water move, unless there's sweat or tears involved. Blood is a whole other trip, not all living things use blood the same way, but it's basically water a little thicker; and milk/semen, thicker still.

Oil slows things down, and even burns, it's so thick! And all living things have essencial oils, making up their Life Essence, Ojas/Jing from which they nurse and store nourish. We're all born with some---

But it started with water, at least that's how the water remembers it, and everything else that a man is made of is just what happens when water was treated with different things, like fire and spirit. This is Sepher Yetzira stuff, right? Excitement, passion, they make one sweat, and thus inspire (perspire?) water's motion, justifying the original split--

Because water only resents the split when it's stagnant, and this is the secret of Tuma water vs. Tahor water: water doesn't mind the split of creation, as long as creation is interesting enough to justify being apart. It's true about exile of every kind: we don't get homesick, as long as the Life is too interesting for the past to compell backwards--

This is also the secret of preventing or encouraging G-d's destruction of the world. As long as the world is happy being the world, destruction will not follow. One preson being happy might annoy others who feel neglected through his satisfaction, but when everyone is having fun? Then the whole world is changed forever, until, chas v' Shalom, it gets lame--

But the whirlwinds and hurricanoes don't let that happen, they come and disperse whenever it comes too close to an end to creation. "Break it up folks, there's nothing else to see here! move it along!" This is why the tower of Babel is not tolerated, nor the generation of the flood. G-d has enjoyed history, and has not yet become so contempteous of it to want to end the world. Give him a minute, let the party get lame, and we'll see--

But yeah, water is crucial when/for tripping. rave culture taught us the important of drinking enough, because when life is Alive in the unstoppable dancing way, and all physical imitations, all assumptions about how far I can go vanish, how much do I really need food? Water? But yes, water is important-- on the other hand, obsessive water drinking doesn't help if it's more than the body can handle-- about 8 ounces every ten minutes. Maybe more if you're sweating alot, but you know what? It's fun to ignore thirst sometimes, and just keep dancing. Don't let the mind and it's paranoid assumptions and obsessions about what it thinks you need get in the way of a really sacred moment. Powerful messianic occasions depend on not stopping, not looking away, not fleeing, but being willing to die for the sake of what's being revealed through you, if it's really worth it.

(you'll know right away if it is. If you're not sure, it's not.)

Water, according to Kabbalah, is just congealed light. Psychedelics have so much to do with light, that's what they open the I up to: more light. Ostensibly the light that's already there, but which the mind is set to ignore in order to focus on the wonderful world of lies.

Too much light. What's that? If you're not sure, then it's not.

This was what happened by the Four who entered Pardes, right?

(here's four commentaries on That, for those not assuming that they Know.)

"Four entered the Orchard (Pardes).

They were Ben Azzai,
Ben Zoma,
"the Other" (ha, ha!)
and Rabbi Akiba.

Rabbi Akiba warned them,

'When you enter near the stones of pure marble,
do NOT say

'water water',

since it is written, 'He who speaks falsehood will not be established before My eyes'' (Psalms 101:7).
Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 14b

Pure Marble:

As transparent as clear water.

Do NOT say:

"'water water: is here!"

" and how can we procede?'

- Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki-Yarchi (Rashi: 1040 - 1105)

Which, as heard by consensus at the Thursday night Zohar shiur in Jerusalem, means:

Do NOT say:

It's TOO MUCH

TOO FAST!

This is the biggest danger with the psychedelic revelation of truth, only fear, only running.
The second biggest danger is the day after, once you know, relating ANY of it back without being dissmissed as crazy as Ben Zoma is:

Ben Zoma gazed
and went Batshit crazy.

Regarding him it is written,

"You have found honey,
Take what you need
and let the rest pass
lest you bloat yourself and vomit it' (Proverbs 25:16)

What proved that Ben Zoma was crazy? The kind of Torah he was talking about.

"Fear Hashem,
observe his Mitzvot,

because that is what mankind is all about,"

quoted Rebbi Elazar.

The entire world
was only created
in order for such a person to come along.

Rebbi Abba Bar Kahana said:

This person
is as important as all the rest of the world.

Shimon ben Azzai,
or
some say

Shimon ben Zoma, said:

The entire world
was only created
to keep this person company. (Berachot 6b)

Ben Zoma once stood on the Temple Mount
and observed from there
a crowd of some 600,000 Jews.

"Blessed be Hashem!"
he exclaimed,

"who created all of these people
just
to
serve
me!" (Berachot 58a)

Of course, he's kidding here, maybe, but maybe not. It's not clear which of the Torahs in his name are from before he's considered "outside." But htis is related to the secret of the water, before it splits, as it's coming back together: As far as the Water is concerned, there is only "I" and the parts of "I" not yet come back together, coming back together. This is the heart of Ben Zoma's conclusion later, the question he's meditating on to the end, why he's considered "crazy:"

R. Joshua asked Ben Zoma the defining question.

This is how the Talmud (Hagiga 15a) records the event.

R. Joshua b. Hanania was standing
on the way up to the Temple Mount
when he was see-able by ben Zoma
who did not stand up in his presence.

"From where
to where
ARE you, Ben Zoma?" asked R. Joshua.

"Envisioning, I was

peering

between the waters above and the waters below.

There's like no distance between them!

a mere three fingers breadth!

As it is written, (Genesis 1:2) And the Spirit of God hovers over the face of the waters.

Like Like Like a dove fluttering over her offspring without touching."

R. Joshua announced to his students, "Ben Zoma is still outside."

The Talmud then goes on to elaborate,

"This is the space between the first Day of creation
(the Light)
And the Second day
(the splitting of the waters)

Don't tell me it's too much to think about, Ben Zoma says, everyone who ascends to Pardes says.

P.s. The Dove fluttering above is what brings The Light from Above to Below, this IS the Ruach Elokim Mirapecket al Pnei Ha Tehom. See earlier posts re: The Dove bringing Light.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But this is the problem with dosing people. If I enter Pardes, I did so willingly, and I'm the only one to blame for whatever happens to me. Someone else, if it's "too much", and they didn't ask for it, didn't want it, and aren't ready for it, then whatever they lose is on your head.

One of the great Wrongs of my life was giving a friend of mine Acid when he wasn't yet ready for it. He insisted that he wanted it! And one of the most important lessons I still need to learn is: Just because someone is trying to consent doesn't mean they are ready, and this is the secret of Statuatory Rape: Just because they're trying to consent doesn't mean they're ready.

I'm tired of quoting Talmud, leave it to say, there's a fair amount of qualifying who's ready to unveil the mysteries before: Basically, it has to be something you just can't hold back anymore, like sex, death, sin, conversion, or coming out from under the mikva water.

But yes, Dosing people without their consent doesn't tend to do so much good for them if they are unwilling or unable to face what they are about to face.

I WOULD ARGUE that neither Ben Zoma, Ben Azzai, or R Elisha Ben Abuyah count as exactly unprepared as much as having actually found that which they sought. The example of my friend goes something like this:

Me and his brother were all Chavrusas, learning partners all together in Jerusalem and elsewhere. And me and his brother had had a phenomenally successful acid trip a week earlier, one that changed us both for the gently freer and clearer on our own truths, wills, and senses of being guided or at least indulged, or at most, rooted for by myriads of spiritual forces.

And so, He was a bit jealous. Afraid to trip, exactly because he was afraid of what it would be like, he did not want to come along with us... but when he saw what tripping together did for us and our friendship, he wanted to come along. So he begged me for a while to dose him.

I refused at first, but, tickled by the idea of opening up my friend to truths about himself and his situation that none but himself could share with himself, I gave him some.

See what I've done already wrong? I HAD SPECIFIC GROWTH IN MIND FOR HIM. This is something someone cannot do for a friend, have a sense of who He is supposed to be, what he is supposed to understand. One can share his own perspective with a friend, but to assume that someone is supposed to grow a certain way? Ascend to a certain level? That's the beginning ofall the abusive relationship, that assumption that You are not who you are supposed to be yet, but with my help, you could be.

OK, maybe sometimes people do want this, to be guided and such. It's still evil to try to control too much and that's why animal breeding and forced plant cultivation can be so creepy. Ok, fine, introduce factors, try to share perspective... But assuming that others have to become certain things? This is what every teacher, every missionary does for evil.

And sure enough, his trip started well enough. But I didn't want to be around him at a certain point, disgusted with what I perceived as the shallowness of his experience ("the light! the colors! Jerusalem is so holy!") I kept trying to ditch him. To avail, he insisted on keeping near me, so did he trust me.

So fine, I started guiding him on visualizations, or should I say, unvisualizations. Quiet the mind, and let all images pass. Sit there in the darkness, and let what comes come.

I don't want to, he insisted! Can't we do something funner?

At which point I got quietly huffy, and he tried to show me that he could do what I was encouraging. And it freaked him out, quickly, how could it not? Darkness amongst darkness, someone who really did have alot of disturbing information that they were too immature to process!

He's fine now, really, but he was really flipped out for a while, stopped smoking weed, and was really angry with me for quite sometime. He forgave me eventually, but hasn't tripped since, and all his growth since then has been in very incremental stages. G-d help us all, grow safely, whatever that means.

But yes, too much water, too fast, that's alot of what the G-d we're so afraid of is and does. Psalm 29 is all about this, G-d's voice pentrating in the strong water, a flood shattering very tree in it's path. This psalm is attributed to being a description of the experience at Sinai, where a flood appeared to be coming into the world, and everyone was terrified as The Word of The Lord was about to be unveiled in it's purity--

And then he stopped, before it all poured out. In Tantra, one forstalls orgasm partially by holding the tongue to the roof of the mouth, and one can hold back words in much the same way.

Holding back words is very sad, much like holding back and orgasm, if it's something that's mutually wanted. But if something better can be sustained for everyone by holding it back just a little bit, then the party can continue a little bit longer, and no one has to get up and walk away quite so fast.

ONE OF THE MOST marvelous Mushroom trips I've ever had was also one of the most terrfying for two friends, and this one, i'm not sorry about. They got mushrooms, and I happened to be around so they dosed me too-- little did they know, i'm a fucking madman!

Ah, but if only if it were that simple. A fucking madman is easy to ignore, lock out, run away from. But a fucking madman who grounds himself in familiar, accessible fun and charm, is much more of a mindfuck.

They were eating and talking stam Shtuyios at the beginning of the trip, and then complaining abouthow it hurt. I warned them, gently, sweetly, but clearly, that they might just want to not eat for a minute, the the trip be it's own thing--- but no. People want to do what they think they want to do, and you can't tell me what's good for me, mom!

Ok, fine-- but I stay close enough to still be around, interacting psychedelically the whole time. Backing off just as soon as whatever i'm saying gets too threatening, balancing it with something fun, comforting... God dammit, if we're going to trip it shouldn't just be wuh, i'm tripping so hard, colors, ooh--- it really should be meaningful, holy, somehow. Not in any particualr way nessesarily, not because anyone else thinks so, but hey, g-d put me in the room, hahaha!

So, I played back and forth with them, balancing truth with comfot, until they locked me out of the room, which was also part of my instant plan, peak my annoyanceness enough, just enough, that she, a cute girl who I had very limited romantic chemistry with, would wind up seeking refuge in his arms, a dorky but funny guy who probably didn't get enough affection anyway. Let me be terrifying and real so that the experience of me is life changing, until it's JUST A LITTLE TOO MUCH, and then yay, you still have each other to run away to and with, while I go drink my green tea and mushroom saturated Piss, and laugh at how cool I am.

Which my ego never lets me do very often when I'm sober. My ego sounds alot like my concience, keeping me reined in, and constantly reminding me that i'm nothing. It's in the ego free monets of psychedelic clarity that I stop worrying about Who I think I am and why I think I have a right to XYZ, and just let the voice come, and quiet when it's right, and speak when it's right. It's rare for me to have situations where this really feels ok sometimes, and one of the reasons I appreciate Jerusalem and shabbos so much is that a context is made where the word can come out, and who is speaking is understood as peripheral to The Message.

R Nachman of Breslov hated being revealed to the world. He was at a wedding or something, and someone gave him some wine, and he started talking, and suddenly people were listening and saying Gevalt! it's a new Rebbe for the word, and he said, Oh y Vay . Now I'm done. Now i'll never be free again.

Dancing can be the only way of relieving this messianic tension, put it into the the body, and let the confusion and terror come out, rather than letting the paranoia sink deeper and constirct you further. If you know that the word is not just about you, and your bris is strong and maintained, you can express all the truth in the world, and the fear can be shooken off on the dance floor. And furthermore, all those that see you shining then will see that you can know such a truth and still be free, and they will feel safe knowing as much and more.

Dancing is very important, yes, for tripping or not, and that's why drums and music can be so crucial. Terrence Mckenna encourages silence, stillness, sitting and holding the visonary space, but maybe that's why it all feremented into a brain tumor for him (what the fuck do I know? maybe nothing.) As far as mushrooms and acid anyway, which I experience as more full body motion things, danceable situations are very important, and if there is no music, I have to start making SOME KIND of it.

Although, if your'e doing a visionary thing, asking questions of G-d or spirit, then sitting is crucial. My earliest trips were just that: trips, walking meditations, open for human interaction-- it's easier in Jerusalem, Oregon and probably India, where people are relatively unthreaned by those walking around in sacre-trances, it happens all the time.

Maayanot
Azai Yezuvun
Ofdei adonai Yishuvun

OOh mey yesha
Yishavoon

Vi hatzara
Nishcacha.

This is the messianic fantasy of Jerusalem in the end of days. You know what makes Jerusalem special? The water.

There's all these underground wells all over the fucking place, right there by the temple mount, and down by every exit from the city mountain. These are the places where the initiations of all the masters happend, from John the Baptist to all the Judean Kings. Baptized with secrets becoming clear both under the water, and more once they come out.

And one day, the prophesy goes, the water will pour out of Jerusalem like never before, and a certain grass will grow, nourished from that water, which will go on to nourish the four corners of the world,
and the grass that grows by that water?
It's leaves will be for healing. All the troubles, forgotten...

Yeah, yeah! The mikva is just such a great resource. For before, after or during a trip---

Well, really more before and after, unless you have the space in a given mikva to do your thing without keeping people waiting or terrifying them... but it's such a nice meditation. You guys know the mikva, right?

Pure living water, sometimes warmed,

dipped and submerged into, you can let go

close your eyes, and give up on breathing

see how long you can stay in the Holy

before you have to come up for air

gasping and desperate to breathe, and then desperate to get back in.

Different water situations provide different purifications. Lukewarm water during the day is a totally different zach than say, heated pools ever shabbos, or the much beloved and feared freezing cold water at midnight, the delight of tzaddikim.

Holy master and teacher Josh Lauffer (don't ever call him that to his face!) gave over the secret once of overcoming the fear of death.

Once, when i was nineteen, I decided, I'm just going to go do it. Once at like two in the morning, in the dead of winter, I said to myself, fine, I'm just going to get it over with. I'm going
to Lifta.

(Lifta is the closest, biggest fresh water maayan (spring) to Jerusalem's center of town. Jerusalem is Fucking Cold in the winter, especially at night, especially near bodies of water, coming out of stone caves)

I go, and decide, i'm just going to get it done with now.

Because, i'm so afraid of dying.
So why not just jump right in and face it now, and stop worrying about it?

(and that's part of the psychedelic secret of how to use water. Tip of the melting Iceberg, but about all I can handle. did I leave anything important out? besides the mystery of Shirat ha yam, and how Miriam fits into it all? )

(next: the pre-epilogue:

Manna-mushrooms touched on, poor Miriam chose it all?, and then:

that's it

For the weblog once known as Cannabischassidis.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
p.s.
Supplementary readings:

Sepher Bahir:
62. They asked him: What is the meaning of the verse [with regard to Balak and Balaam] (Numbers 23:14), "And he took him to the field of the seers."? What is the "field of the seers"? As it is written (Song of Songs 7:12), "Come my beloved, let us go out to the field." Do not read Sadeh (the field), but Sidah (carriage). What is this carriage? He said, "The Heart of the Blessed Holy One." His heart said to the Blesssed Holy One, "Come my beloved, let us go out to the carriage to stroll. It will not constantly sit in one place."
63. What is his heart? He said: If so, Ben Zoma is out side, and you are with him.

An attempt to figure it out once and for all

And, just to consider, a Snag Torah Remix

RISING TO THE OCCASION

"The servant [Eliezer] ran towards her [Ribkah]" (Beresheet 24:17)

Rashi explains that

the servant ran to her because he witnessed a miracle:
the water in the well rose to her.

The Ramban explains that Rashi derives this from the later phrase, "she drew water for all his camels" (24:20). Obviously, in the previous pasuk she did not have to draw the water.

Why didn't the water also rise the second time?

At first, when Ribkah came to the well, her intention was to draw water for herself.
Hashem didn't want a sadeket to inconvenience herself and therefore caused the well water to rise so that she could fill her jug easily.

However, the second time, when she went to the well, it was for a misvah - to feed thirsty animals,

and Hashem did not want to take away part of the misvah
by making it easier for her.

Therefore, the water did not rise
and it was necessary for her to draw water for the camels. (Vedibarta Bam)

Just sit with that.

How to trip properly: next-to-last-continued

2007-02-08T09:40:00.000+02:00

BalSem/Doktor's warning: This piece is a long one, you may want to print it out and read it on the bus or something. It starts with a request, re: Cannabis Chassidis:

OK NICE, TOO BAD I QUIT THAT 10 YRS AGO LETS TALK... OK NICE, TOO BAD I
QUIT THAT 10 YRS AGO LETS TALK PILLS !

LEAH KLEIM

Marijuana is easy and safe to defend, advise on use of. Nothing bad will happen for years and years, and the worst things that happen aren't worse than the side effects of being sad, overworked, eating or talking too much.

Other drugs, especially the newer refined ones, are a bit sketchier, and demand a bit more mesiras nefesh, possibly.

I'm not a big fan of pills, personally, I resent the industrial forcing of our bodies to deal with situations that they really don't want to be in. The zombie pills that make it easier to sit still and accept, the uppers that make it easier to stay awake when you're really not interested enough to anymore... ich vaist, who needs it? But then, I am talking out of my ignorance, I know alot of people who really have been enjoying the chance to take control of their own mental states with chemistry... What do I know about the medicine someone else needs? Medicine is the responsibility and right of the self to determine really What Is Needed.

There's liver/kidney issues with all of these pills... The Life essence suffers and is depleted every time you force yourself one way or the other, and everything from Red Bull to Aderol and everything in a related Extreme UP aspect is bound to be ultimately draining. Is it worth it?

This is the aspect of "hard drugs" that is, drugs that make you Hard. Ego Boosters, Gayva ("pride/arrogance") is dependant on a certain blindness, and some SaMim(drugs) specialize in this kind of SooMaoot (blindness.)
All drugs blind, each according to What's Desired.

If you really want something, you might want to be blind to the possibility that it's not yours, or not to be yours, or be blind to caring about what is wanted by it. It's true about girlfriends/boyfriends and it's true about children.

Psychedelics can be used to clarify what's really there, to blind only from social illusions and assumptions about What's possible or Supposed to be.

To the degree that there's psychic and physical danger in psychedelics like Mushrooms or LSD like there is in all the speeds and Awake remedies that Science has yet taught Man how to extract, I personally am happier taking those risks, just as I'd rather the long term damage from a life of Marijuana Smoking to that of a life of Cigarette. What tobacco does doesn't seem worthwhile to me enough. What speed does doesn't seem worth the crash, nor the risk of corruption of self---

But Psychedelics, to me, often do. Mesiras nefesh for the sake of more light, more insight, more clarity and deeper understanding of allahwho-knows-what does seem worth it.

And let's be honest, we all want something in our lives that feels worth giving up everything else for. Don't do it! It's always stupid! But wouldn't it be nice to have a G-d, a lover, a party, a place I can put everything into?

Shir Hashirim laments,

"He that gives all wealth of his home up in love,
what a waste, what a shame!
(boz yabuzu bo)"

But the nice thing about Torah, Sofia, Truth, is that it feels worth giving everything for.

One of the comforting thing about religions is that they give a real sense of priority over, what's most important? The family! The Temple! The Poor! Surrender! You know, it's easy to look up and see what I "should" serve most, and serve last, if at all.

And this is why it's so important to boo Haman, and not let your GodKing serve him, nor to bow to him yourself: To defend and care about your Princess and your Peoples, it's satisfying maybe to have a sense of who/what from. It's ok if The King is fucking you, I guess, but that Other selfish jerk? The one that doesn't mind killing disobedient wives? Not if I-and-I can help it!

Don't be afraid to die in the experience of shocking new and potentially hard to grasp ideas: They're all true, and so is everything you knew yesterday.

R'Nachman's Law is crucial for tripping: Thou shalt not be Afraid. It won't help, lehefech, it's the only way to get hurt.

Well, that's not quite true. One tripping very hard can, theoretically get hurt, by denying reality's limitations, and jumping into traffic or something. But Going Out does not demand that level of foolishness from anyone, only ego-madness, the insistance that I Must Be bulletproof, that the New Truth utterly destroys the old. This is not what happens to the self when one trips, not at all, and the popularization of the myth that it is is an insult to the billions of psychonauts throughout history, including very probably all of our distant ancestors before a certain point.

It still should be easier to justify and guide the use of natural ethneogens like Philocybin Mushrooms or Peyote than it is to for LSD, but it's really not too different, only a little stronger and, let's say, easier to accept.

What do I mean by that? Holy Brother and Comrade Allahuechad once compared Mushrooms to Kabbalah and LSD to Chassidus: Mushrooms demand personal preparation, a clearing of the stomach, ideally at least five hours without food, and certainly an avoidance of anything with Niacin (vitamin B2) for a little while before in order to maximize potency. This entails avoiding all sorts of healthy, wonderful things, like salads and algaes, with Ayahuasceros in Peru traditionally going on three day Fish-and-plantain fasts in order to build seratonin for the Journey, because the psychedelic experience runs on seratonin, or something.

Either way, the mushroom trip is delicate, and hard to really expect huge, crazy results without taking what T. Mckenna calls "heroic" doses. Not to disparage Mushrooms or Kabbalah in any way, but both demand certain purification of body and mind to be received. Kabbalah, for example, demands alot of attention and meditation, pondering and repeated study and focus to be understood at all, let alone experienced.

LSD, and chassidus, on the other hand, demand very little except the slightest bit of attention, and a willingness to see what is being revealed through, which really, anyone with a desire to serve and take responsibility for the world at all, along with appreciate the wonder of creation is capable of, and benifited in their efforts too.

A pure heart comes in many forms, and a dedication to service is the essence of them all.
And service of the heart is none other than Prayer: The secret heart service only-purpose of the universe. The healing of nations. There's a reason the Indians and the Irish all pray over their poisons/medicines, smokes and drinks. Drugs help the I open up, be real, focus and yearn clearly.

Psychedelics can also be heart openers; I have experienced them very physically. Compelled to dance, or to run, to just get outside, or inside. I heard a one wise man advise playing a game of constricting the mind into focus while tripping, then letting it spiral off into different universes, like a tautly pulled bunjee cord rubber band snapped, hurling some rock of insight/outtasite out from the void. Prayer is very good at a time like this, exctatic praise followed by Weird Meaningful sacred invocations of angels and clarification of Certain Divine truths wrapped up in songs of profound universal request (a new light on zion shine/Thank you lord, who chooses love), A testament to the main patterns, a unifying expereince with a long EchAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad and blessing over the leaving of egypt and then boom eyes are closed and there's bowing, and as much light as is wanted is drawn down, and Seen! as if as if, that's what it really was for and about.

But for those without a mass prayer tradition, and even those with, a simple invocation at the beginning; a declaration of intent, like, along with a wayfarer's prayer

(keep me safe oh lord,
to do what I
am needed to do,
and to get home real safe.

Thanks lord for listening to prayer)

Once again, I like the idea of maybe having a question to scrier through. A specific prayer went in of What Is Wanted To Happen.

What Healing,
What power?
What Change.

Like, once, I wanted to speak to one voice, and then another time to another.
And always to be free
to hear no voice at all
and to remember that all voices heard
are my own

And there's no reason to be afraid.

It's nice to have a curandero friend nearby, or maybe within telephone reach, someone you feel safe with and trust just to talk to afterwards, or if it gets too weird. Someone you trust though, that's important. But some people are tough or smart enough to be able to feel safe anywhere That's something mushrooms have been for before: hunting.
Helping the Eye (thee I) see better, just a little better, and see faster, accept more immediately, they say it helped us become better hunters maybe.

But maybe hunting prey is a little bit obsolete in that form, but there's all kind of frontiers in terms of thought and interaction still available for would-be Transcenders. Go and Find Them. There's all kinds of loves waiting to be freed into having, and it could be that those are more appreciable prey, once there's enough regular material food in the village, and all the dishes are clean.

I like cleaning up at the end of a trip, once i'm Danced Open and I only want to help. I blame Rainbow Gathering for this, but sometimes at the end of a String Cheese Show, I like to help the janitors clean up garbage. Why should they have all the fun?

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Mikvas are nice near the ends of trips, or even during peaks if you're gonna be able to hang out for a while without fear of being suspected of untowards behavior just for being in the mikva for a long time (fucking Ammeratzim!) It's a safe place to let go, ideally, to be able sing and breathe, and subsume. But forests and parks are great too, just for walking and Seeing.

Different people on different levels of familiarity with the psychedelic experience have different needs. It's good to go to where what you needs is, and it's ideal to need as little as possible, to be able to adjust and give to everyone around you while the Life Drug is in you, and the Body/Voice is able to speak. but many of us aren't on the level, and really benefit from a guide.

What's a guide? A Rebbe you trust. This does NOT refer to an official Rebbe, but a person you know and trust. One of my best guided trips was with nine year old twins and their sixteen year old sister, running around with me to a park looking for a party. Mind you, these were/are particularly Rebbishe twins. And no, they WEREN'T tripping, nor did they know that I was (until later.) They were just very Rebbishe people, who accept and even appreciate my trips sometimes, as long as it's good.

But yeah, Timothy Leary once translated the Dao te Ching with R Zalman, and called the book "Psychedelic Prayers." He translated it with creating an "ideal" setting for a psychedelic experience in mind, and one of the Psukim goes like this:

The best of guides
you don't even realize he's a guide

I was wondering about this: do guides need guides? not in the same way, ah? Some people, it feels so much easier to really be, really come out as a divine person around them, through them, because of them. Those are good people to be around when tripping.

When all is said and done, there's really no better advice than, Take it easy, as easy as you want to. Breathe deep, accept G-d, and trust what's coming, even as you dance around it. There's so much more to say about all this.

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One of the issues some Kabbalists have expressed about psychedelics is that they are "Gezeilas Ohr" Stealing Light, like getting access to some information that you're not deserving of, or ready for. But Light is the one thing you're allowed to, nay, have to steal, by any means necessary, like Moshe Rabbeinu running away from the angels with The Torah under his shirt. It's a big inyan in alter Chassidis, stealing the Rebbe's writings. I have to know.

(next: How to trip properly: conclusion. Mayim, Mayim, don't dose people against their will

AND THEN, the epilogue, what we have learned from all this.)

2007-02-06T01:37:00.000+02:00

What's the proof that marijuana is holy? It never sinned.

How do we know it never sinned? Because every part of it tastes and smells like it's fruit?

next to last: halacha l' ma'asei

2007-02-04T08:17:00.000+02:00

Hey. I'm back in Jerusalem for a little bit, the place my holy brother and comrade Allahuechad calls "The Land of Broken Dreams."

As if that wasn't the sweetest, greatest thing you could call a place!

My dreams, having been relatively flexible, seem relatively unscathed so far, lehefech, I'm really touched and inspired by some of the holy nonsense and half-sense alot of the kids out here are into and doing. It's been awesome playing with the local chevra, dancing with our minds and bodies, wriggling and writhing extatically at the strange comfort/discomfort of the boundaries we're working with around some of these parts.

And during this spectacular reinforcement of the dance-joy-torah I so value, some criticism and concerns about my conduct and explorations has come up.

Some friends (because who listens to enemies?) have expressed concern over two issues in my writing and living the last little while, namely concern that I am legitamizing-by-engaging "anti-semites" and treading dangerous water with my exploration of creative romantic boundaries. Both friends have expressed concerns that I am endangering my legitamacy through this.

Which I think is effing hysterical, because it implies that the Marijuan and psychedelic advocacy that i've been doing is perfectly respectable.

Which, apparently, it totally is in the religious Jewish Community now, at least as far as De' Youf' is concerned. Isn't that awesome?

This feels to me like a newish thing-- the respect and approval for marijuana that pretty much everyone I know of a certain age, whether they choose to smoke/trip or not, has. I engage a range of different communities, and i'll tell ya: it's pretty much across the board. From Monsey to Crown Heights, Detroit to Baltimore, Montreal to Williamsburg, Jerusalem and all of Israel, and lets not even TALK about California, everyone seems to be holding that Cannabis is at the least, not as bad as tobacco, and seems more effective than prozac or tylenol at making the world just a little bit easier to handle, without crippling any more than say, eating too much food.

Which totally gives me hope for the future of our people. I don't think the Jewish money organizations are in danger because of this, nor any of the thuggish militias and militaries under our communal hand. Lehefech, it might well save our lives and our souls, and create a context for the healing the wound of exile, that once compelled us to take some aspects of our lives waaay to seriously.

And by this I mean, money and control. It might well be good to take life seriously, if that's going to help children get fed. It's REALLY BAD to take life seriously if it means you have to beat your kids to make sure they keep shabbos. Agmas Nefesh, Moirah Shcoirah, they're all traditional terms in Jewish for feeling shitty, and as much as the drugs won't do ANYTHING to solve the root causes of our depressions and funks, JUST HAVING A PERSPECTIVE with which to look at the best and RELEASE the internal bonds whipping us and leading us to whip our spouses, children, animals, and slaves can't but help, right?

Sure, marijuana will not solve all our problems, only Brown Rice and Flax seed oil can do that. But what it does do very well is shift priorities.

Because drugs, like shabbos, can and will change you. Terrence Mckenna Z"L talks about his invenerete stonerness, and why he would smoke as much as he did (every day or so, which can be considered alot. That is to say, more than I like, for sure)

"It's just that... when I would stop smoking grass for a log period of time, i'd notice my priorities start to change... I'd start worrying about "how am I going to pay this bill" and "maybe I need a new house on the hill" or some such nonesense... and whe i'd smoke, my thoughts would be more like "I wonder what ever happened to the Lost Etruscan civilization?" or some new innovative way of programming a design."

Everyone one knows, harmony depends on offsetting extremes once they've gone too far.
What we need as people is not the advice to just stop doing drugs, it won't work any better than the "don't have sex" rule worked on the catholic clergies. We need guidance on how to make drug use holy. Here's some:

Marijuana. There's a principle in the talmud that anything that gives pleasure has to have a blessing on it, and so, there is one over fragrant herbs in the tradition, at least two or three, actually.

Most people I know say Borei Aisvei bsamim, thanks G-d, who creates fragrant grasses, because cannabis is more like a grass than anything else, growing and dying seasonally. Borei Minei Bsamim works too, i's more general, thans G-d who creates different kinds of fragrance.

Now, an issue is when to say the blessing. Before the hit make sthe most sense to me. The rule in the talmud re: incense is AFTER the first cloud of smoke starts lifting, but that doesn't really make sense with modern pipe, blunt or joint smoking, because you're using your mouth to hold the hit it, and there's also a prohibition on making a blessing with your mouth full. It takes the focus away, which is the oppoite of what blessings are for.

So, I like to make the blessing upon smelling the unburnt Ganja, either from the bag, or even from in the pipe, taking a sniff of the un-lit herb, and blessing beofre proceeding.

The blessing is less important that the dedication, which sets the focus of the hit and the high.

I don't kno how far back the "l'chaim" tradition goes, if it's a chassidic innovation, or not... but how could it be, when the irish do it also?
Before taking a strong drink, make ing it safe by dedicating it to some wish for a good world some how, for peace or passion, strength or style-- whatever you want the strong drink to do for you-- so too with ganja.

(UPDATE: I wrote R Yaakov Fogelman to ask: "where does the L'chaim" tradition come from? Surely it's pre chassidic! And he quickly responded:

"As I recall, Birnbaum claims that there was danger, in ancient times, that snakes,and scorpians were found in wine- so he who is about to bless God for the wine, first asks the assembled company, "sovrei," think, gentlemen- is this wine safe? If they think so, they respond with "l'chayim", to life, it's ok!"

psh! it's very deep. There ARE scorpions in drugs if you take 'em down too fast, without intention.)

While you're holding the un-lit pipe, all attention is paid to you, so it can a nice chance to do something holy if you want to-- talking for too long can annoy the weed hungry people in the circle, but a little dedication prayer can be nice. What DO you want to happen in the world? What do you want for yourself? For the sake of that, l'chaim, and then immediately light the pipe.

It's important not to expose the weed to too much fire too fast, because then, the grass will just burn away, and you won't actually be smoking that all much. Holding the fire JUST far away enough from the bowl that when you're not inhaling, it's not lighting, and getting the littlest bit of fire to kiss the top of the Green with the inhale is really the best. Because then you can actually taste the weed, and you don't overwhelm yourself with more smoke than you can handle, which will prevent coughing and accidental cough-blowing of the weed out of the bowl.

There's different traditions from here on out; I like to past the pipe/joint/blunt/bong as soon as possible, so the next person doesn't have to wait. The tradition of Luminaries like Sticky Green and Moshe L. is to simply take your time with your own bong hit, and just pack the next person a fresh one, to enjoy, wholely and peaceably. Both ways are holy.

it's good to respect silence when high, speaking only really important insights or real physical priorities (like: "take this exit off the highway, over here!" ) Words don't nessesarily work quite as well when stoned, although ideas and feelings can still be communicated... it's not a good time for abstract detail.

Night-time in general isn't, and marijuana is in the aspect of the moonligh: hazy and romantic. Don't talk too much, but feel welcome to open up and express the passion, as it comes. Again, don't get caught up in details within stories, feelings will move easier, especially warmth.

From there on, trust the body and it's needs, but not it's desires. Don't eat so fast, because you will not get satisfied-- it's better to fast for some hours after smoking, maybe do something physical like running around, singing, pouring your heart out before your G-d. sometimes just massaging your stomach, couphing and burping can be great.

Marijuana, Chrissie Hynde teaches us, is really good for helping to be able to focus on a task, but not for switching focuses. Try to have the focus set before you start smoking,and slip right into it after the high starts to set in. My cousin Andrew, when we first started smoking, told me that weed smoking is a supplementary activity-- it's usually not something you do by itself, but a way of highlighting another activity, ranging from washing dishes to playing guitar.

Mushrooms, LSD and psychdelics, on the other hand, are a whole other Zach.
(continued soon.)

Nixon's Question pt 2: Osho's answer

2007-01-11T16:34:00.000+02:00

I cross posted this piece to Sevenfatcow. I first became aware of it through Josh Lauffer some three or four years ago, but only saw it in it's entirety this past month.
It has to do with Nixon's question: Why are Jews so into marijuana legalization?

Beloved Osho, are all minds Jewish?

Abhiyana, there is some truth in it, it is so.

To be a Jew has nothing to do with any race. Jewishness is really a quality --
the quality that calculates, the quality that thinks always in terms of business. That's why the other day I said to you that it is really unbelievable how the Italians could snatch the greatest business from the Jews. It is really unbelievable, it is a miracle, because the Vatican is the greatest business on the earth. All the Rockefellers and all the Morgans and all the Fords put together still fall short.

Jewishness is a quality; it can be found in a Hindu, it can be found in a Jaina, it can be found in a Christian, in a Buddhist. It is the quality of calculation.

It can become great intelligence, it can also become great cunningness -- both alternatives are there.

Jews have given the greatest minds to the world; the people who have dominated this century were all Jews. Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, the three great minds who have dominated, who have left their immense impact on modern humanity, were all Jews. Jews snatch more Nobel prizes than anybody else. That is one part: the mind can become very intelligent. But the other part is, it can become very cunning, mean, calculative.

On his way home from the market, where he bought a beautiful horse at a very good price, Moses is surprised by a storm -- and the Siberian storms are really frightening!

"My God,
if you grant me safety," he prays,
"I promise to sell my horse and give the money to the poor."
As soon as he uttered these words, the snow stopped and the sky cleared up. So Moses arrived home safely.

The following week,
with a heavy heart,
he went to the market to sell his horse.

But he took a goose with him.

"How much for the horse?" Old Isaac asked him.
"The horse is sold with the goose," answered Moses. "Two rubles for the horse, and a hundred rubles for the goose! "

That calculativeness, that cunningness -- now he is even deceiving God!

One small boy --
must have been Jewish -- was going to the synagogue.

His mother had given him two small coins,
one for himself
and one to be offered to God in the synagogue.

On the way he was playing with the coins,
and one coin slipped from his hand, went into a hole.
The boy stood there, looked at the sky and said,

"So take your coin!
Here goes your coin, God!
You are omnipotent,
so you can find it anywhere.

It will be a little difficult for me."

Just a small boy -- but he finds a way out of the problem. This quality is Jewishness.
This quality, wherever it is found, is Jewishness.

If you try to watch your own mind
you will find a Jew hidden there.

Whenever you calculate and whenever you start living mathematically, whenever your life becomes just a business, just a logic; whenever you lose love, whenever you lose the quality to share, to risk, to gamble; whenever you lose the quality of giving wholeheartedly for the sheer joy of giving, beware of the Jew within.

But the Jew is very difficult to destroy, because it pays you. It helps you to succeed in the world, it helps you to become famous in the world, it offers you the whole world. If you are really calculative, the whole world is yours. The temptation is great. If you are tempted by the world and all that it can offer, you cannot get rid of the inner Jew.

And unless you get rid of the inner Jew you will never be religious, you will never have innocence -- and without innocence there is no beauty, no benediction.

Of course, of course, of course, that's not what I identify with being a Jew. I identify it almost with the opposite, faith and hope, humanity, warmth, and passion for sweetness. Osho is not for trusting, that's not what his zen truth-lies are about... but as he says above, "there is truth in it."

Jews in general don't understand what gentiles mean when they use the term "Jew" derisively.
Their definition is close to the talmudic definition in Tractate Megillah:

Who is called a Jew? Whoever rejects Idolotry.

Which is to say, whoever rejects other people's God? Whoever sets boundaries on what G-d is and what G-d Must Not Be? Whoever takes responsibility for and control of their lives and their God?

This rejection of Idolotry can liberate us from slavery, but can also be used to deny whatever we wish to deny, and change whatever we wish to change. G-d's voice can speak and we are free to say "Fuck you! you're not the real God!" And then we don't have to listen. Don't it break your heart when people find a way to ignore what you're trying to tell them?

One of the original sins of Judaism is the Iconoclasm that destroys idols rather than "just" liberating from their slavery. Violence has been nessesary before, whenever we need to get away in a hurry, but if we believe in God, what's the hurry?

Marijuana is a mind drug, can be used that way, and i'd argue, even tends that way strongly. This is why it's not really relaxing, only liberating-- the mind is expanded, awakened and allowed to be with itself, out loud, within, and the In-sights can flow. We don't always use it this way, but this is the best thing it does for me. If you want to stop thinking, stop thinking! Drugs might not help, maybe opiates---

Marijuna maybe be flexible in the power it grants, it may depend alot on intention and constitution, just like bread, but y'klnow what? It has tendancies. The melatonin/Jing/Ojas is released from the Kidney, into the brain, and the creative links between davka the unconcious mind and the concious mind are bridged, in the aspect of the kavanos for Elul, where Chochma and Binah are bridged, and the unconciously stressed in brought into view and able to be dealt with.

The thought that became life essence returns to the brain and burns a light into mind, and this can be useful and appreciated when it is, and only exhausting and debilitory when it's not.

And one of the hallmarks of the occasional toker is the inspiration. This is a hallmark of the psychedelic experience n genral, ideas! Big Ideas, that come down seemingly from no where, about how to fix this, resolve that, accept or understand why someone is the way they are and how to deal with them... Mind people really love marijuana, and this is one of the proofs that Blacks and Mexicans think alot more than some might assume.

What Jews call the "pintele yid" the inner little Jew point in all life is rather the opposite of what Osho's talking about, but what could he know of Judaism from the inside? He was certainly curious, infatuated, and when he came to the west, his first request from one of his followers was for "Academic Jewish women who like to fuck." I know how he feels.

I was once confessing to a rebbe in Jerusalem about my desire for different women, the absurdity of it. He responded: "you're not interested in the women. You're just interested in the revelation of secrets." He was projecting.

Christians don't tend to think of themselves as Goyim either, identifying with Jacob and not with Esau. Very few cultures really identify themselves according to other people myths, if they can help it. Louis Farrakkan hates the legend of Ham.

Why do gentiles hate Jews? Because we keep secrets. When do they appreciate Jews, and Christians for that matter? When we share the wealth and bring good water. As said before, there's less anti-semitism where Israeli agriculture companies are irrigating the barren wasteland, less anti-christianity where the missionaries are saving the lives as opposed to enslaving. This is one of the climaxes of Apocalyto, so i've heard. The local religion is concerned only with exctatic drug use and power politics, not with caring, and the people on the altar know it.

And the Jews can take you out of that, is what the Jews think, or at least take themselves out. The great crime and virtue of Christians is how much they insist on taking you out too.

So, anyway, that's why Jews want to decriminalize Marijuana, why poor Lenny Bruce was so sure that it would be legalized in his life time: because they believe that the law exists, matters, and is not mystically untoucheable, just like religion, just like God. That it is powerful, divine and useable for our purposes. That is The Misnagged god: Law.

What Osho calls Jew, Chasseedim call Misnagdim, "snags"; i.e. people who are trying to outsmart G-d and themselves out of life, for the sake of reward in the world to come. In the more antinomian hasidic communities, that title describes anyone concerned with the rule itself, and not with the love behind it. And unless you get rid of, or at least circumcise, the inner snag, you will never be religious, you will never have innocence -- and without innocence there is no beauty, no benediction.

As if the labels were really who any of us were AT ALL. Another conflicting Oshoism: "it's the labels, and who you think you are, that keep you from the present, and keep you from What Is"

But they say, why was Jerusalem destroyed? Because Israelites didn't make the blessing to The Holy Blessed One over the Torah. What does that mean? R Tzadok HaKohen (I think that's who it was! It sounds like him.) says that it means they treated the Torah as if it WAS g-d, a divinity to be worshipped by itself, as opposed to What It Is.

What IS the Torah? It started as water, and grew from there.

Next: The End of Cannabis Chassidis-- an epilogue to wrap it all up.

So now is your last chance: any unresolved threads? undiscussed topics? questions or requests for what to deal with? LAST CHANCE TO MAKE IT INTO THE BOOK, FLOKS!

Nixon's mystery: mah im ha am a zot?

2007-01-07T13:38:00.000+02:00

"You know, it's a funny thing,
every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish.

What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?
What is the matter with them?
I suppose it is because most of them are psychiatrists."
Richard Milhous Nixon

I haven't seen Mel Gibson's Apocalyto, and if I ever do, I can't imagine it will be in a theater, but I am fascinating with seeing a bit of his persepctive through it.
Nazis and villains in the world all have a mythology that they're coming from, and hating/ignoring/ridiculing only silences, doesn't heal, or bring any understanding at all. This is the level of the Baal Ha Tanya's apporach to prayer, as opposed to the Holy Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem tov says, if you have a dirty, evil, or just distracting thought during prayer, don't dismiss it outright! It's a precious gift, and related to whatever prayer you were just praying, bound up in it and seeking it's redemption through that prayer-- look into how the "strange" thought connects to the prayer in question, and pray with it's fixing in mind. Becaus eit's all one as is known.

The Baal Hatanya says: That's only for very high tzaddikim, don't YOU worry about it, just ignore it and keep praying.

It's a sign of our weakness of spirit and distrust in our own "truths" that we can't engage neo-nazis, anti-zionists, or anyone else very well for very long, before just ridiculing or name calling them. But it's also what lets us keep working on building our building--- if we stopped and dealt with everyone's issue, we'd never get "anything" "done."

Ignoring is very high, it means They Don't Matter. It's also terrible, because They do, as much as They do.

Mel Gibson said something defensive and profound during a television soundbyte not-to-long ago that struck, because he used a term I was unfamiliar with. He was being asked about the new movie, he was very excited to talk about it, and then the interviewer, on CNN or the Today Show or something, asked something like: "So, are you still angry with the Jewish Community for boycotting your movie?" Something like that. And he said, with a sharp, deep breath and a widening of his eyes, as if he was so tired of having to deal with THIS NONSENSE! "No, no i'm not angry at anyone. I'm tired fo talking about this, I've been keeping my yard clean."

"I'm keeping my yard clean, let them clean up their yard."

I'd never heard this term used before. It really made me wonder how many other sayings are part of cultures across the country, that i've never heard before. He said it as if it was obvious what he was talking about too, like this was a common term to use. But it was obscure to me--

Apocalyto, from what i've heard, is Mel Gibson's progressive movie, ha ha ha, as if.
Aztec Politics keep people's heads on the altar, and the likeable and innocent natives are suffering from it, until redemption comes at the end from outside, the christian missionaries come to civilize the earth. Yay!

It's very rooted, alot of people share this view of history, and censoring may help prevent darker myths from being unveiled and mass-believed, but it also keeps us from seeing what people really hold by, what their guiding mythconceptions ARE.
Seeing these stories, and hearing their message, is crucial to the work of unifying G-d's name in the world, and possibly preventing holocaustage, as if such a thing was possible? Maybe it is. Maybe there is some process of education and illumination that can prevent future atrocities.

Because i'm not nessesarilly optimistic about the fate of the Jewish people in general and the white man in particular as the karma account gets strained and the third world chickens get hungrier. IT could well be that America's guns will keep it together forever, but that really hasn't exactly been the pattern of history, has it? Be they human or animal sacrifices, someone historically has wound up paying for the crimes of the state, be it the people who were actually responsible or not.

I'm reading a comic called, Action Philosophers lately, it's great. I'm reading this one section of Machiavelli, which has been sadly deep and insightful on the nature of effective and sensitive authority, that is, how to actually, successfully control a populace. He holds very strongly by the importance of listening to the populace, that is to say, not being alienated from what they REALLY think and feel. Because, if you are, you won't know how to appease them.

This was Richard Nixon's virtue and failure, right? Not caring about what people thought about him, genuinely hating the very idea of caring about what people thought about him.

Neo-nazi pacifism is a beautiful thing, right? It's the violence that scares me and my people, the willingness to wipe out an Other, as opposed to the longing to be left alone to Live their tribal traditions in peace... as if that was the problem that anyone had with The White Man. The sad thing about neo-nazi Americans is only how much the rhetoric is about having thier cake, and eating it too, living in peace, but being able to stop others from living in peace-- I have yet to meet and hear about a live-and-let-live Nazi, who really doesn't mind what anyone does in their own land. But maybe i'm just sheltered?

Why are the Jews evil, they used to say? Because our people are being sent to fight their wars.

One of Machiavelli's other big principles, one that's been popular in the history of state sponsored anti-semitism, is let the middle man get his hands dirty. The heads of state should never admit to the atrocities they order, instead speaking sweetly and sending lower level lackeys to commit the actual horrors-- that way you can just blame and punish THEM, the lackeys following your orders, after it's all over.

Very often in history, the Jewish gentry played this role, in Russia and in Poland, and that's much of why we got the brunt of the cossack hostility. We agreed to be good citizens and follow the kings orders to collect taxes-- and that has always been the high crime of the jewish people in exile: playing the game and doing well in a country that demands evil and harshness for the sake of success. We justify it in a number of ways, try to find a morality within it in a number of ways, use the position to do good, what have you, but the fact is, the peasants notice who is picking up their rent checks, and that becomes the easy face to hate, as easy as it is to hate the bureucrats at the IRS or the Department of Motor Vehicles, or the bouncer at the club, as if HE was the problem, as opposed to just another whore trying to survive.

The traditional defense of the succeful Jew echoes that of the entrailed nazi, I was only following orders, I was only trying to take care of my family, and it's things like that that make me wonder how good it really is to care for your family, if ignoring the little wrongs I live from is the only way I can do that. The generation of the flood has a problem like that, according to the legends, where everyone would steal, but only a little, so you couldn't get anyone for it.

The rule is, I heard Alice Frank say, my first responsibility is to all life, and then, and then and then.

A problem with being president is that you have to look like you care, so maybe it's harder to ACTUALLY care once it's your job. Richard Nixon resents caring what people think of him, even as he feels compelled to play the game somehow. This is what gets him to support Israel militarily to the degree that he did, against the advice of his Jewish advisor Kissinger, who maintained that it wasn't worth it because of how America would be considered. I don't care Nixon said, it'll be good for us in the long term. This is why, by and large, the beginning of why Jews became republicans, the ones who valued Israel over all anyway.

This is also what allowed him to go to China, this contempt for indulging expectation, this is also what let him invade Indo-china, as quietly as possible.
This is one of the ways that Nixon's republicanism is so different from the modern Neo-republican philosophy, which depends completely on controlling or at least framing how people think. Nixon/Kissinger, according to the Directors of Nightmares Of Reason, are not interested in having enemies NESSESARILY. The Neo-con agenda cares very much that people know that there IS and enemy, and We are your friends.

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The better counter to Nixon's posthumously revealed question is what do the Gentile Authorities have against Marijuana legalization?

It's a very deep thing, and a testament to Nixon's hipness to some kind of a what's-going-on, that he was able to acknowledge the difference between the Jews and the Bible Hebrews. I'm sure Sigmund Freud would clasp his fore head if he heard Nixon say that ("Jung couldn't give it over to the gentiles? Ach!") as much as he'd also be delighted at the thought that the main things that Jews would be known for being were psychiatrists.

But he wasn't talking about the religious Jews when he said that, because we're sucha small minority in the Jewish population, certainly not as vocal and visible in the seventies as we're starting to be now... But still, it's such a small percentage of Jews, especially in the worlds he could have seen growing up Nixon, as he did.

But it's a deeper things also-- when don't gentiles like Jews? When we're ruining the country. When do they like us? When we make them see how special they are. Everyone knows, right? What does it mean to be a Chosen People? It means you're showing everyone else all the time how chosen they are.

The Man is afraid of marijuana when they think it might make people fearless, dangerousously stupid, and they're not afraid of marijuana anymore once they're clearly not. Having all kinds of crazy radical ideas can = dangerous, but it doesn't have to, once we the law breaks learn our lessons and learn to be better, more likeable and helpful law breakers.

Why do all the holy righteous Hicks in all the sticks and boondocks of America distrust scientists, Robert Anton Wilson says, it's for the same reason they used to distrust jews-- Because we keep secrets--- that is to say, speak in a different language. Scientists speak in math, all science is build on math... And Jews speak in Yiddish. Either way, people distrust what they don't understand, it's so heartbreaking when people talk around you, and don't even try to speak your language... whatever it may be or have been.

So yeah Nixon, he really helped out Israel... was pretty bad for America though. I think Americans really feel ripped off when someone benefits from their president more that they do... Because then what good is he, if he's not looking out for me and mine!? That's why Bush has been popular, to whatever degree he's been popular, in the hopes that he's a thug who gets things done-- the most comforting thing in the world to have if you're scared of other people taking your stuff. St. Francis and the Holy Yid of Pshische would say would say let them have the stuff, you need it more than I do, brother thief--!

If I was being Idealistic I'd say that why do the jews support mariuana decriminalization as much as they do is because they learn the bible in the original, where the right of humans to consume All The Seed Bearing Herbs is maybe spelled out more clearly? Or just because suffering in Jewish Law/Medicine (Law/Medicine is as good a translation for the word "Torah" as I can think of... although "guidance is a pretty good synonym) is very much to be off set as much as possible-- because it's alaw we make for ourselves, together somehow, rather than someone just imposing on us. People can forget that it works that way, that a people has to ratify laws in order for them to actually happen-- laws that no one cares about, no one will care about.

It's interesting that Nixon didn't say lawyers, but why should lawyers care about Marijuana? It's sad that Lenny Bruce's prophesy never came to pass, that all the dope smoking lawyers he knew, which was, like, ALL the law students, didn't just change the law after two or three years-- Alas, someone must have offered all the Lawyers and politicians a better deal if they'd just shush about it. It's a pity though that all the fundamentalist christians in the south don't become staunch believers in the Universal Human Right to Grasses, but i'll tell you-- all the REAL christians that I ever met respected it.

Nixon did have enemies, I think his mind wanted to get a good sense of what he had to deal with and worry about-- But his vision was to not have any enemies left by the end-- as opposed to the Neo-conservatives, who hold that it's really important to have an enemy or two forever-- just for the sake of keeping everyone together at home. This is why Israel and the Hostile Arab World depend on each other so much, and why it's so important to the leaders of each country that there should be JUST A LITTLE war all the time between US and Them-- why else would there still be kings and corrupt dictatorships anywhere in the civilized and/or educated world if not to defend the residents of one country from the nightmare soldier legions of rape hungry rude savages of the other?

I disbelieve Nixon's contention that NO gentiles were involved in the marijuana legalization movement. What about Dana Beale, John Sinclair, John Lennon or good old' Tim Leary? But maybe he's talking about the laws on the books, legislating changes and that kind of thing?

We wonder alot, how sheltered the later Presidents after Kennedy had to be, what kind of mushroom box they have to be cultivated in before anyone will nominate them for the presidency-- IT's a shame presidents can't be more honest about who they are and what they do and just really open up to people about what they have done and why-- It's a problem with Jews and Freemasons, all this swearing into secrecy-- why can't you just be real with people? Only if you don't really trust G-d and Truth, you have to be careful what you say, only if you aren't willing to really care enough about the other person do you have to lie to them... I hate to say it, but it's true, except when it's not, sometimes people really just need you to not say certain things that might seem clear to you as if they were truth... But if you can say it nice enough, they'll hear it.

My favorite Terrence Mckenna Torah ever: If the truth can be said in such a way that it is understood, it WILL be believed.

----------

Do you believe that? If you understood it, you wouldn't even have to try too hard to.

But yeah, it's a big problem, this whole thing of Jews caring for jews and not other people... It's an old tribalist thing that every tribe and every hometown does... and it's ridiculous, because how're you gonna limit caring? once you care about one person, you're really responsible to care for everyone as much as that one person, at least while you're dealing with them, and if possible, forever on. But it's hard for people to worry about everyone, so, my family comes first... First my wife, then my kids, then the rest of the family, then the rest of the neighborhood, and then the rest of the city. And then, if you're doing SO well that you can take care of everything in the city, THEN you can worry about the whole country, and then, if the whole country is ok, Then the whole world...

But me and Jesus and Rumi and the buddha and all the Rebbes, and all the Tzaddikim and deep down, everything that lives, we're all here to tell you that it's realy safe to care about everything and everyone, all together, all the time... Because that's what it means to love G-d, right? You love the cops even as they come to arrest you, the abusive husband even if you have to yell and scream and have your brother's friends go beat him up-- it's all G-d as much as the Christ is... that's what the Life of Worlds or The Life Eternal that they keep talking about is-- the part of G-d that is alive, in the world, and feeds us all.

It's really safe to care about everyone and pray for all their individual successes, because there Is No Enemy Anywhere, only other struggling lovers, who really matter only just the littlest bit less than you do.

This is the big theological difference between Jesus and Jeiwsh Law, according to the talmud-- How far Love your Neighbor as Yourself I am God (actually the full commandment phrasing in the hebrew bible) goes.

Jesus says,
if you're in a desert
with a friend
and you only have enough water for one of you to survive
Share it anyway, and maybe both die, but who cares? At least you died together.

Rabbi Akiva
(who by the way, is the guy who ratified "Love Your Neighbor as Yourself" as the main message of the Torah, AS IF everyone didn't know that already)
says, drink it yourself,
because you come first,
and what the fuck? You should HAVE TO die because he didn't bring enough water?

And the secret is,
If you really love someone
You won't care WHAT the law is,
you'll rather they live
and maybe you'll give them everything anyway

and the other secret is
maybe it's hard to genuinely love other people effectively, and really want to take care of them if you're not willing to take care of yourself?

The Law is there for you
and shouldn't demand you kill yourself
unless it really matters.

Jewish law encourages a Jew to let them self get killed mostly to avoid having to do things that kill you inside anyway-- and so there are no law breakers, ever, they're all just trying to survive, and survival should never be illegal, ha ha ha.

The main reason people feel like they have to be racist or homophobic is because they're afraid that if they're not, THOSE PEOPLE will take advantage of US. Jesus is trying to tell the Jews, listen, it's really ok to die, it's really ok to die, don't worry about it... and we're saying to Jesus, yeah, it's OK? Go ahead, die, enjoy, if you make it look good, we'll all die too-- and alot of Jews did, there in Jerusalem back in the day before things were cool like they are now (ahhhh! hahhhh! ach!) maybe because it looked like fun when Rabbi Akiva and all the other martyrs were doing it it, being tortured to death and laughing all the while.

But, some people didn't want to die. And that's always been the problem with the Jews, like it's the problem with You and God. NOTHING THAT IS REALLY ALIVE WANTS TO HAVE STOP, NO ONE WHO'S HAPPY EVER WANTS TO DIE, but some people let go sometimes---
But King David never wants to die, and all his annointed Childruns around the world don't want to die, because life is so good, life is so good... and so, it's their nature to make you feel that way too when you're around them.

How do you know if someone's a messiah? If they make you feel happy to be alive when you meet them, and you never stop being happy again.

l'chaiyim!

Why do gentiles oppose marijuana (i think it's because of their bible[not really{yeah, totally}]) and the secret of water, a.k.a.
Maayan Nogeah)

and then, the stunning conclusion to CANNABIS CHASSIDIS
If I should live so long, M"H

sophis kaytz meshichei

2006-12-21T22:29:00.000+02:00

So... I'm getting ready to wrap this site up. Tie a ribbon around it and cast it into the depths, until it hits and creates a world.
I'm getting a wee bit tired of tying everything in to drugs all the time, and wouldn't mind a different venue to write through.
But before I go, i'm going to throw maybe three more posts out, viewers choice.

Is there any thing else I should talk or ask about? I'll take any requests for things still left unclear, or never touched on, to cover, so let me know, ASAP, anything y'all would appreciate me dealing with here. That is all for now, as always, more will follow, somehow.

The secret pact between the Pope and R' Judah: giving kings the benefit of the doubt. Might as well.

2006-12-14T22:00:00.000+02:00

So, once or twice upon a time, there was a conference, between the chieftain of our clan and the cheiftain of theirs.

Our people had been fighting, and the cheifs wanted to end that.

The cheiftains who care not for their people don't mind so much when there is fighting, they benefit from The Enemy being The Other, instead of too much attention being focused on the domestic Caeser.

And that happens. But a generation later, two generations later, who's in charge? Maybe sometimes, the leader of a nation is secure in his own place, and genuinely takes on the priorities and concerns of the people he is in charged with caring for.

In tribal times, when dissatisfaction with a leader resulted in the end of that leader, it might have been easier to ensure at least that the Chief was the most devoted, helpful, caring and wise of the tribe. I wonder if it's ever been that way, but why not? Why shouldn't things have worked righteously at least for a minute every so often?

So, once or twice, it was that the Caeser of Rome and the Exilarch of Judah had a conference, to end the fighting.

Enlightenment depends on communication, translation. It was very important for Greece to translate the texts of all those living in it, so that the wisdom of the other should be understood, in order that it not be threatening. This is why it's crucial to understand other people's languages, and contexts.

Remember that old episode of Sesame Street? It's ok if you never saw it, But once a few of the people in the neighborhood of Sesame Street go with one of it's more wounded, forlorn residents to visit his hometown, on the occasion of some family get-together of his.

He was a grouch, unlike the other mostly positive (though occasionally frustrated or even sad) members of Sesame Street's rich and diverse community of Birds (big and small!), Puerto Ricans, Monsters, Blacks, Queers, and even deaf or retarded people and puppets. His name was Oscar, and he apparently chose to live in garbage, in a relatively constant state of anger and contempt for the goings on of the community. But he was loved, nonetheless, and found friends amongst the people, some of whom wanted to come along with him to visit his home town.

In fact, It could be he even begged them to come. It had been so long, and he was worried that his changes in charchter might not make sense unless he had some of his newer friends with him. So two human beings come along with him.

And they are greeted with jeers and screams! "scram!" "Who said you could come here!" "leave us alone!"

And so they start to feel bad. I guess they don't want us here. "fine!" "we're leaving!"

And the Grouches in Grouch town are surprised. Oscar understands, and calls his friends back.

Guys! Don't feel bad! They like you!

That's just how we say "hello."

Ohhhh! The humans say, and they come back, suddenly recieving the seemingly jeerful greetings with appreciation and aplomb.

That's just how grouches talk!

And so, Romans have been confused by Jews and Jews by Romans. There's a long history of guilt and wound, distrust and confusion. Shchem some how offends Jacob's children, by marrying their sister wrong, and they use it to wipe out his people. And our defensiveness continues to confuse, offend and destroy, even as it might save our lives and our pride, it might well not be. who knows?

And so, Rome is aware of it's atrocities, and defensive of them almost to the last. Even as it tries to grow, no king is sorry for what decisions he has made for the sake of his kingdom. His kids might be sorry though, but everything they had comes from their father, and appreciation for what father has given over is ever the virtue of empires.

This is a vision I had while tripping on acid at a String Cheese Incident concert in Brooklyn's Prospect Park. I grew up in Brooklyn, and it's was a very deep messianic thing for SCI to come play there. That they knew this was reflected in the set list, and in the party favors they brought with them.

Do you guys know how tour culture works? It's mamish awesome. People from lost places jump on, meet new family, fall in love, and follow a band on tour for as long as it goes. They make money selling whatever good they make or bring to locals in the new towns, selling anything from food to clothing to jewlery to psychedelics: how pure and how good the merchandise depends on the band being toured with, with the righteouser bands having righteouser, healthier crowds.

And String Cheese, somehow, is one of the sweetest. the music is really peripheral, but trust worthy, and the true testament to the goodness of what they're doing shines on the faces of the kids that feel safe and compelled to tour with them.

And so, sweet positive people sell Psychedelics that can be trusted. A lovely interacial couple from Virginia sit and talk with me about God and Prayer before selling me two tabs of acid. One is enough, but I feel safe here, having fasted all morning on Cacao beans ground into a paste with fresh organic blueberries. I'll take two, in the hopes of finding something new.

And so it goes. I tend to experience psychedelics very physically especially when music is involved, not music for listening, but music for CELEBRATING.

And so, it takes on and takes off. It's a really positive bunch of bands, and a nice circle of friends. Fro-yo comes with his mom, who has a whole cute easy chair set up. When the acid starts to kick in, I put my bag and surplus clothes near her, in the hopes of having them again once the show is over.

I used to have a problem, where exctatic psychedelic revelations would result in me losing all my property. Tephillin and I.D. cards and all kind of important detail, don't ask... It would often be experienced as worth it... but not ideal. Moish Geller once claimed that it was a sign of some kind of lack that needed filling, and, thank g-d, lately my excstatic transformative experiences seem to come without such a cost, caniynahurrah.

But that day, the only cost was some terror. Not really, i'll explain.

I'm dancing, spinning, rolling, going crazy, but in control enough not to be hurting myself or anybody, as I start peaking. Messianic fervor hits me, and I want everyone else to dance themselves back to life too.

At one point someone comes up to me, an older guy comes and whispers to me as I slow down, You know: you rea;;y have to be careful with traveling now, because you're on the FBI's suspicious person list.

I laugh openly nervously, "maan, don't tell me that!" And then what can I do? What would R' Nachman do? What would Adam Silver do?

Adam Silver is a very nice person, who left a strong mark on Jerusalem when he was there. He did this by dancing, non-stop, during prayer, weddings, and other religious occasions. His dance style was mostly kind of pogoing up and down, leading Emuna Witt's father to call him a "yo-yo." There's great stories about him going around, and Moish Geller has the most sublime video of him giving over this amazing Torah about the tree of life and love by his engagement. And Moishe tells this Adam Silver story:

Once, in Nachlaot, before there was a beis Simcha, the Shlomo Chevre would daven in alot of different places, and once we were davening in this one Chabad house.

And Adam was jumping in the air during the whole davening.

And so, one of the Chabad daveners came up to Adam, and gestured with his hand, while shuckling his head and wincing his eyes cynically. "ok, that's enough. You can stop now."

So what did he do? He danced stronger. pssh! Nothing can hold us down! (lashon Moishe)

And yeah, so inspired, and remembering the words of my master, I started dancing, spinning, softly, with the music laying all the heavyness of the world and it's danger down, I started screaming/singing

There's nothing!

SO MUCH NOTHING

to be afraid of

(smiling laughing)

There's nothing

so much nothing.

And while doing that a vision hit me,

The pope and Avraham Abulafia
or was it Antigonus and R Judah Hanasi?
Sitting in a room. They are so happy, so high.
They are the richest people in the world, ostensibly in charge of large communities,
but ultimately slaves to the fears and limitations of the communities they minister to.
Ultimately limited like every Rabbi and priest, unable to tell the people too much of what they don't want to hear
lest they lose all influence, and/or be killed

Aaron Hacohen becomes a liar and an idol masonto save his life and stay close to the people, to be there with them in their folly. He sees what happened to the priest who wouldn't indulge the flock.

They're talking, having come together at a neutral party somewhere, having opened to each other as they opened to the secret of the One G-d that everyone serves

There is no enemy Anywhere.

And so they meet. How can we keep our people from wiping each other out, but still let them be themselves?
Because assimilation is not an answer, if either side is precious.

So theologies are constructed that acknowledge the Other, and make excuses for why we have to be who we are and they have to be who they are and it's ok, and when Moshiach comes, we'll figure it all out. Cabals are formed, suspicions are raised, and secrets are carried through genrations, shared through initiations and parties. Shared in subtle ways in the official rituals and theologies that the enlightened sages distribute, that somehow find funding to get lots of copies made, and schools established.

It's a big historical mystery: Why didn't Rome wipe out all it's Jews? They did a real good job of wiping out every single pagan culture under their wings-- why not Judaism too? "While we're here", you know? The official Jewish folk myth is that they tried and couldn't, but ultimately, a decision was made to give the jews a certain autonomy, althroughout Roman history. The Church, as anti-semetic as it was and had to be philosophically, found lots of loopholes for not wiping out the Jews, and even found a need fufilled only through them, as banking and usury became vatican staples, the pious christian authorities needed someones who could charge interest safely, without violating neither Our laws nor Theirs.

Somebody had to have gotten together a few times to work something out. Maybe it wasn't always or ever with so much trust, but somehow the aleinu prayer got the worst parts of it editted down.

It occured to me then, looking around at a wide variety of Edomite (and Edom Colonized) and Israelite children in Brooklyn: we really want to be at peace, and psychedelics play a part in helping us forget the limitations that we always took for granted about who we are limited to being.

as I start dancing wider, faster out of control. I breathe and use Tai Chi principals to keep me from flying out of control, and it occurs to me: Kids have died from doing crazy things while tripping. People have died from not knowing what to do with the infinitude gifted to them by the boundary disolving substrated.

And I had a vision, of telpathic conduits connecting the kings of the world to the psychedelic adventurers, letting them poke in and see what going on.

Gods and angels don't care if you die, unless they want to defend you for some reason. They are not impressed by recklessness, at least not reliably, and would really rather you be smart enough to take care of yourself. I have studied the body and how to speed and slow it, and I don't have to stop too fast or run too long, and that way, I remain useful to them.

It occurred to me that this culture is being allowed to happen. Why? Because they, the lawmakers and enforcers, are less threatend by us as they are curious to see what will be. Our innocent piety sometimes charms them, and the main fucntion of youth is to give elders hope for the future. Stupidity, naive irresponsible self indulgence doesn't impress Them, but beauty? shared excstacy that some how leaves better things and sweeter awareness of your humanity? Aculture that makes people less of a threat and more of a help to you and yours? Once understood, such things are hard to hate.

And so, it seemed to me that the Sabbatean conspiracy in charge of America and Israel lets these things go sometimes, in the hopes that we'll be able to heal what they couldn't. Our parents are only jerks in the hope of making a world safe so we can play happily, and in a very deep way, who can oppose that?

The fear of the other is that they don't understand, can't appreciate, don't care and aren't interested in what beautiful we're about, and that's why art-haters are called Philestines in english. As if Philestines didn't have gorgeous pottery and the finest purple linens.

And that's why the war on idolotry had to change, why prophesy had to be surrendered to reason, and reason to some subtler listening.

And that's what Chanuka and Christmas are all about. See here.

The rest of the show, I kept bumping into people, and when the show ended, a great proof to the intentions and cares of the bands involved was revealed. They sang "rollover" which is all about the futility and shortness of empires as waves wash over them, and ended with a Beastie Boys cover, the very deep "No sleep 'till Brooklyn" turned by Michael Franti into "Smoke Trees in Brooklyn" and "Grow trees in Brooklyn," a clear allusion to the Williamsburg classic "A tree grows in Brooklyn" and, of course, all the kids growing like trees everywhere and right there. You can find the show here somewhere. I followed some kids into the subway and talked about Jerusalem, they asked me if i saw Jesus and I laughed, saying "I saw Christ there, but no Jesus" and a few of them seemed to get what I was saying.

Alas, I'm still in Brooklyn, back and forth between here and Jerusalem... looking forward to seeing you all here and there.

Love! yo.

Cocaine bitches and Chassidic wishes

2006-12-04T19:39:00.000+02:00

I was shocked and impressed by the new Blanketstatementstein song, "Never Stress," The bands excursion into Trip-Hop. It's funny, and potentially impacting in a few ways, I wonder how much it's going to get noticed.

It's good to hear Mike on the Mike, innovating smooth and witty hip-hop, the boys conquer another genre, but yeah, this one line impresses me, as a theme in the song

"If your girl gives you trouble
Get a backup bitch"

It's very deep this lyric, and not just because of the strong stand it takes on the immediate viability of, I guess polygamy, though no gamy is necessarily involved.

The use of the word "bitch" is very loaded with misogynist cargo, I personally avoid using it as much as possible, but it's also a word with strong and wide MEANING. IT implies something loud, and specifically, either complaining or demanding. It's femininity does not imply that it only refers to women or feminized men, as seen in Dave Chappelle's use of the term for pretty much anybody being spoken to while in a state of ego intoxication ("I'm rich, bitches!")

Menashe Yaakov, the main musician behind Blanketstatementstein Back From The UK (as opposed to Aharon Mueller, the main musician in front of BBFTUK) is too deep and briliant a soul just to be throwing a word like bitch around purely for stylish value, and it's clear to me that he's saying something with this lyric about the nature of desire, and the nature of Judaism and halacha.

Because it's a very Halachic song, counter romantic and honest, and I only get really concerned with the last little part of it. Repeated testaments to refusing swine, a double entandre? "Why waste time on an RC session?" The theme is priorities, MC Aaron (who is not Aharon Muller) launching into a litany of fleishik delights that he is never seen snacking on, before describing the virtues of a girl who he is open to snacking on, their relationship (back when we were both seeing other people) and it's short term/long term questionable viability, quietly dismissing her sense of the unlikelyhood of long term monogamous union, with a loving, "I'll be here waiting if you change your mind."

Poor ("ain't got no green, not even a celery stalk") and increasingly "stressed" over This Girl, who's know married to the richest guy in town, who can't love her like he does, we get a peek at a romantic notion, for the first time counter to one of the hearts of modern halacha: You can't like a married girl, even if, even if. But it doesn't sound like the marriage described in this context is an actual binding "marriage" as much as another semi-permiable Union.

Marriage depends on wealth, sadly enough, maybe, hene all the chassidic stories of Orphan children needing money for weddings and beyond. Poor in terms of whatever impresses her majesty means that the relationship can no longer be about what I have to give you, hence King Solomon and Eddie Murphy find their true soulmates only while on the road living as paupers...

Controversial street halacha revelation, I say controversial because we don't all hold by it, but some of the more pious amongst us certainly have declared their unwillingness to acknowledge the Boyfriend/Girlfriend relationship as having any kind of inherent sancitity, that is to say, if Rocky steals my girlfriend, it's ok, because we haven't gotten married, "girlfriend" doesn't count for anything.

Which opens up a whole can of worms re: Polyamory in Orthodox Judaism. If this norm becomes accpetable in the wider religious jewish community (as if it already hasn't)
What Marriage is for, and our whole mythology and cosmology of soulmate will have to change.

As if it hasn't already. R' Nachman long since gave us a theology for why someone can have many soulmates in their lives, right? Such is the way of souls.

"We focus on the people who party all the time." surely this is a different kind of soul-crowd, with different soul needs--- how much can it be everybody? Or should?

According to Terrence Mckenna, party all the time was the way humans used to breed and live, in small wandering communities with exctatic psychedelic fueled orgies for breeding. This is before people were people, i.e., had farms, cities, industries... but it's also the last time that things felt right, he maintains, as if he could know, except through Prophecy.

"The people who party all the time" Is R' Nachman's people, is what he demanded of us as I understood. Gevalt never give up, never stop dancing. Never get old, Never stop trying for the exctatic joy available in every moment. You might slip and fall asleep now and then, don't let it stress you, just get back on the wagon and keep partying 'till you stop having to die. This is practice for the world to come, and maybe the only way to get in shape for it.

Cities allow no peace except through Work or Party, this is my experience of New York and Jerusalem, the best we can hope for is more comfortable parties in places where it's safe to pass out when the time comes.

But yeah, the party lifestyle lends itself to polyamoury-- one is forced to realize how many different kinds of soul connection one has with different people one the one hand... and one is freed from doing anything out of fear of being alone.

There's a great Tosfos line, I think from R' Ephraim, commenting on something somewhere in Brachos: "A woman is beautiful will not be faithful, and a woman who is faithful will not be beautiful." Ouch, right! It's very deep though. Once someone realizes that they're beautiful, they stop fearing that affection will not come their way except through contract, it feels safe to throw your bread in the ocean and trust that the waves will bring it back (proverbs 11/1.)

But of course, the world, the world, has not yet seen fit to sustain very many people's beauty forever, and when age starts to wear the party people down, it's nice to have someone watching out for you. Behold, R Shlomo interviewed by a cetain R' Leibowitz, care of the archives of Steve Amdur

You know, do you know the story,
famous story about the holy Physhisker,
his wife --
and everybody thought she's a bitch.
Anybody wanted to see her husband
she made them so much trouble, you know.
Tried to talk them out of it you know.
So everyobdy
said you know,

"oh what a bitch."
OK, so
nobody said anything.

But then, at her funeral, the holy VORKER says. I want to tell
you somethimg:

Do you know that the holy Physhisker,
when anybody came to him, so he would
say, before you even talk,

whatever pain
you're suppoed to have,
I accept it upon myself.

Then
he'd start talking.

You know, the holy Physhisker
had nebach, had I think 14 or 15 children
died.

Only one son was left you know.
And this
was only because people came to him and
they said my child is sick.

Momish he would say "G-d forbid!"

If a child has to be sick,
better my child than his child
you know.

So she said
I was so afraid.
I didn't want people to talk to him
because I didn't have KoaCH anymore.
I had one son left.
I didn't have KoaCh anymore
you know.
Gvalt you know.

-----------------------

R' Nachman is more excited for the parties with his Chassidim than he is about his wife, or their wives for the most part, encouraging his closer followers to leave their families for long periods of time to come and learn (and sing! and dance!)
He does note, however, about his first wife "If i'd known how important my first wife was, I never would have let her die."

!

So it goes. Enlightenment means being willing to let go, and real soulmateage means as much as you let go, it only brings you closer to each other. R Andy of the Israeli Masorti movement once described to me a heirarchy of ideal soulamteage, from the complete each other model to the lowest fufillment of needs as all being valid, but some certainly being more ideal than others.

Which I think is the heart of what Menache Yaakov is saying, both about relationships, and Judaism in general. "Replacement bitch" is not a term of endearment. It implies that the next thing, filling the void, is as much a "bitch" as the last-- cheat not on your girlfriend, lest the next girlfriend be as bad or worse, and this may be the secret of the talmudic maxim "any one with a bad wife never sees the fires of hell." Because once one is surrendered to the good that is their "lot in life," no pain can hurt them anymore.

And it's true about other kind fo marriages too, like our marriage to our religions.
Some have more open relationships with their religions, some are less honest with their religions about what they're really doing, but the problem with just leaving is that, sad to say, the next lifestyle-belief-system won't neccesarily treat them any better. Most people won't leave their spouses for no-one, they'll wait around in a mediocre relationship until someone better comes along.

Some people are committed no matter what, and that's beautiful. And it's only beautiful as long as the other options are available, much like religion.

With Judaism, leaving for a replacement bitch does not solve the problem except to just show that the options are there. And so, swine is forbidden, as if they could stop you?

One of the hopeful assumptions I think in the Torah about it's own laws is that they are not enforced externally except for the most flagrant of public violations, i.e. worshipping strange gods in the synagogue, or eating in the traif restaurant while in religious garb. There's even a description of how to violate law in the talmud, exhorting would be can't-help-iteers to just dress in dark clothing and do it quietly, out of public view.

Which is also, sadly enough, the kind of cheating most upper tier people encourage of their spouses: just don't embarras me in public. As Sholom Keller says: "If every frum person who fucks around would stop keeping it unde wraps, their entire repressive system would collapse." And who wants that, ha ha.

According to Mordechai Yosef of Izbitz, why does the bible list all kind of non-kosher animals? It's like a commoner being invited into the king's castle, to be given anything he wants. It's a big freaking castle, with lots and lots of rooms: how do I choose where to go and what to look for? I could spend my whole life just looking around! So the king gives him a list of the rooms worth visiting. That's kosher food, The Ishbitzer says, just a shopping list of the best things to save you time picking roaches and rats off the sidewalk.

And speaking of non-kosher animals, I have to adress a disturbing aspect of the song, one that's been popping up in Aharon's lyrics lately, clearly as a cry for help. Cocaine is bad, IMHO, it's expensive, comes from nefarious people, and it's effects are ego-delusion encouraging as opposed to ego-delusion nullifying (like most good psychedelics) and it fucks up your nose and kidneys. He's only been doing it lately, as I understand, because it's been coming to him for free, but that's no reason to romanticize it in song and poem. Because it sounds so cool when you say it like that, and the possibility of gaining incredible confidence and power through snorting something certainly can confuse the rational mind into forgetting any down sides until later. Just say no Aharon! As if you liked being told what to do.

Of course, all plants were created for a purpose, and are inherently to be consumed, unlike meats, but refining anything makes it evil. Remember this well. That's how transfats came into being, perfectly good corn, drained of all it's good, for the sake of keeping it on the shelf longer. Just say no! And yeah, never stress.

The Taiva for Drugs is the Taiva for G-d: what Shlomo noticed

2006-11-22T00:31:00.000+02:00

So we were talking about Shlomo.

It's really such a miracle that special people ever happen. In some ways, they're born special, priviledged and chosen by their surrounding and families, their land and their cultures. In other ways, it's all work and choices.

But not only do the choices special people make say something about the person, the other way around too, the people making the choices says something about the choices.

This is one of my big arguments with my mom about marijuana: if i'm smoking it, and I'm as smart as you insist I am (thanks mom) doesn't that say something about the choice in question?

There's an Ishbitz torah like that too, about the aishes yifas toar. Anything an Israelite is drawn to must have something really good at it's root.

And so, Shlomo was drawn to California. What did he recognize, I wonder?
Something was going on, where kids and people were pilgrimiging in from all around the world to share and seek, everybody knows, but what made that first possible? All the gurus who went, it was after soemone told them that something cool was going on.
But how did that start?

Shlomo first grew up in Baden germany, but that scene was shut down when he was just a kid. He grew up largely in Brooklyn, learning his loveable ghetto english from the local negroes, giving him his "hey, brotha!" amongst other speech and style inflections, till falling into the lakewood Torah void.

How did Shlomo first get involved in Lubavitch?

One night, at the end of an acid trip at a string cheese incidnet concert, I came to a house party where some ex-chabadskers were hanging out. It was sweet, warm and intimate, and we started singing some of the deeper chabad niggunim.

I'd had a profound physical dance experience earlier that evening, and after it was over, I needed deep refuge. Profound physical dance meant that night that my body was then different forever, new things being possible on the dance floor, and a strong rush of seemingly infinite might continues for as long as my soul will keep going with it. I went into a breslov trance of ungiving up, even as I looked for somewhere warm and safe to be able to come down safely.

Hashem's wonderous coincidence brought me to a ride to the engagement party that i'd wanted to go to, and when I arrived, it was into a lovely little heart circle, where someone started a niggun, arba babot "the four grandmothers."

Still tripping, just a little, having finally slowed down the body enough to Sit and Feel from the inside a little bit. And the music we were being invited to make felt so---

The couple getting engaged were Russian-Americans, very aware of their heritage, the glory of Russian culture and Moscow. The show I had just come from gave me the impression of having been some profound cosmic event, largely because it was the introduction of this band to the center of the civilized performance world, the Garden of Madison Square.

We've been moving this whole time, all the wter, all the brilliance and the peak of the world where the widest appreciation and the deepest fun is happening. And it was clear to me, singing this chabad niggun, why Chabad was so important: once Russia was the capitol of the world, where the radicalest innovations, spiritual, philosophical, political and otherwise were happening. War, hunger, and the end of fun moved the divine presence from there, but there was a time where G-d was receiving orders from the high people there, and sending back brilliance in return.

And that's a big part of Chabad's awesomeness. I maintain strongly that the Ikkur Smicha of Chabad is not the Torah, but the music. The music gives over the Torah in a way that the spoken words don't do as honestly and purely.

And let's be real for a minute, alot of the draw of Chabad amongst the scholarly and the non-scholarly, was the ambiance. The vodka was sacramentalized because when it's cold and your heart is dying, it will save your life, and the last Rebbe was wise enough to try to curb it a little before leaving the world, because it's no longer so freaking cold everywhere Chabad is anymore. It's an international organization, in very little danger of being killed out the way it once was, and still annoints those who wind up at the right tables with the secret of how to get high in the holy, a musical tradition that gives people amazing power to go very deeply inside their own wordless hearts. From what i've seen, the kids are able to graduate to truer higher sacraments once exposed, and thanks to what they learned from the rebbes, have some kind of language to deal with the psychedelic realms.

Mind you, the klipah of Chabad is the degree to which this language can inhibit transcendance of this language, trapping people in a world of behamis vs. Elokis, gashmi vs. Ruchni, Heart vs. Mind, and all other kinds of falsehood and malarky growing out of a sacramentalization of word idols at the expense of what the words were there to show you.

And that's why Shlomo left Chabad eventually. He grew up secure enough in his Judaism as the son of a confident community head Rabbi that he could make decisions and trust intuitions about what G-d really wanted without having to take a rebbe's word, and was able to discard organizations and paradigms when they would get in the way of what seemed to him the true service that needed helping with.

And so, Shlomo went on to greener pastures. He'd become aware of the light shining onto northern California during the Berkely folk festival in 1966. In Rabbeinu's own words:

Then, in 1966, the greatest thing happened to me. I was invited to the Berkeley Folk Festival. There I saw all these thousands of young people who the world condemned as being dope addicts and I realized that they were yearning for something holy, and their souls were so pure, awesome! The festival began on Thursday morning. On Friday morning I announced that tonight I'm going to the synagogue and any one who might want should join me. I thought maybe ten or fifteen people would show up, but over two thousand came to the small synagogue.

I thought that the people at the synagogue would be so happy that they came, but the president called me up and said, "It was the most disgusting thing that ever happened." We had people staying and celebrating Shabbat till four in the morning, studying and singing, and then the way that the synagogue responded was a shame. So I realized I had to have my own place. So we created in San Francisco the House of Love and Prayer and until 1974 they were there and then many of the best people there went to the moshav in Modi'in in Israel.

And so is encapsulated what is and will be remembered as one of the seminal transformative episodes of Jewish History. Some will deny this, and deny Shlomo and his Torah as just another fad in Judaism, but what can you do for ignorant people?
The implication of this paragraph is clear, though: What brought Shlomo out from limited Chabad mediocrity into his own higher deeper and more immediately useful Torah? Dope Addicted kids who seemed really interesting to him.

There's the degree to which the Rebbe gives smicha to his chassidim, and the degree to which they give smicha to him, as is known. Shlomo's Torah only came into itself at the House of Love and Prayer, and only from there was he able to go to Israel and create the neo-chassidish norm that would capture the imagination of both religious and secular Israel. A torah that liberates the self to trust the self, piercing criticsms of the horrible failures of religious jewish communities, things strangely obvious yet often utterly invisible to religiously filtered senses.

When I first went to Israel, I was utterly fascinated by esoteric Kabbala. Then After a year, I was like, shouldn't this Torah be making me a better person? More useful to the world? And I started to notice, the Torah that made me do that was only Shlomo, and maybe R'Nachman, when filtered through the right person.

Next: The voice that speaks to the dope addicted masses, crazy people and children, and an ending of sorts.
(update: scratch that. we'll come back to that one in time.)

Dare not to not do drugs: How Shlomo blew up his Torah

2006-11-09T04:41:00.000+02:00

There's a problem in the larger Jewish community, a problem that arose as a solution to the larger problem, that of communal, societal death. The problem with this vaccine is that a) it involves danger of permananently changing the patient, in ways that they don't nessesarily want to change and b) it might involve some dishonesty, chas 'v shalom. Or worse, it might demand honesty about how bad the dying patient was in the first place, and how much it might be better if they didn't live, maybe maybe chas v' shalom.

The problem I refer to secondly is assimilation, which, like aids, can be lived with and through, is terribly infectious and culturally devastating and comes from getting intimate with Others. The Jewish corporate entity may not want to die anymore than anyone else does (itself a controvertible assumption i've heard argued against. maybe it DOES want to die, at least sometimes?) but some of the cells inside of it might want to get away and stop feeding the communal tantric deity formed by our co-mingling. Whenever the other world becomes more interesting or fun-derful, it's bound to draw us away from where we are coming from, especially if where we are coming from is So Bad. Which, god help us, the Jewish community has been to different people throughout history. Some try to say that the religion is bad but the community is good, some go the other way: either way, assimilation is the deadly virus at the end of Jewish history, that which will fufill the final messianic solution if bodydeath never comes. Because Rome is growing, learning and adapting all the time, because humanity is, and Judaism has to do no more than keep up? To the degree that judaism cannot be The New, it's only playing catch up with the social standard of the rest of the world, or else providing a much appreciated refuge from the Terrible New World. Mcglobalization isn't kosher makes Kosher a refuge from the shit that the rest of humanity is forced to eat, maybe ideally.

To The Degree that archaic traditional cultures remember the crucial steady good that the speedy, thoughtless pop present forgets in it's shallow and desperate youthful passion, it's the elder wisdom of Grandmother Israel, or Africa, or Itzlan, or Volkskeit or whatever tradition You (or your parents) left for whatever reason.

And so, the second problem is that which remindsyou of where you came from, and invites you home by Any Means Nessesary. By this, I refer to what's now known in the Jewish Velt as Kiruv.

Some have been very angered by the promises that mother told in order to bring us home, about what awaited, who we REALLY were, and what was really important. But how far will your mother go to make you feel safe at home?

Will she come to your parties? Hang out at the seedy pool halls you frequent? That would prove how much she cares, but it might not make her entreaties any less embarrassing, unless she can prove that she's COOL somehow, maybe.

And by COOL, I mean not just quietly accepting, but genuinely understanding, or at least genuinely open to understanding, why you are where you are, and what is the good you've found. Until she can do that, it's going to very hard for her to connect to her fleeing children. Can she do that honestly, even with a danger that she will be changed, even destroyed in the interaction?

Is your mom cool enough to smoke weed with you? Your "Rabbi"? Or cool enough not to have to?

In previous posts, I have mentioned R' Shlomo Carlebach a number of times. This is not to say that he approved of drugs, quite the opposite, he tended to view drug use as the failure to find any thing better to inspire the hippilach, a kind of late night cable tv to the happenning party he was offering.

(UPDATE)
That's not to say that he didnappreciate what drugs could do to sensitize people to sweetness and G-dliness. just that neither marijuna or psychedelics terribly interested him beyond a certain curiousity about what these kids were so excited about, his life was consumed by a very active and inter-human service.

I met someone once who claimed to know a guy who was Shlomo Carlebach's weed dealer. This person was lied to, because I know for a fact that Shlomo would not spend money on mellow drugs. He uses the parable of the Death Drug dealer to give over the secret of how not give tsedakah

Let's say someone comes to me and says,
Oh Shlomo
Help me out!

I need to raise three thousand dollars
To buy some drugs to sell to some kids
to kill them
Shlomo, couldn't you help me out?

What? Am I gonna say "sure, brother, let me help you out"
try to run off and to a fundraising concert.
What am I crazy?
If I do, i'm a murderer.

Chinese medicine uppers, on the other hand, he would use in order to keep going. The work was infinite, and there was always something else that only he could do, another reason to blow off sleep. Another person in need, another concert or appearance where to not go was to neglect an opportunity for some really crucial break through, often literally saving a life.

Intoxication did not interest Shlomo, not that kind anyway. He's the kind of person who would drink grape juice for kiddush, even as he'd exhort his disciples to be drunk yidden, drunk all the time on the awesomeness of G-d.

This is not to say that he never smoked, how else would hippies know that you were cool? The story would go, that as a joint would get passed around a circle where he was rebbeing, he would once hit it once, twice, and then the third time say: and once more in honor of Yaakov avinu. Or sometimes, just hold the joint when it would come to him, and then just start expounding, until some fool would say, hey man, pass that fucker! But it would be too late, the joint would be run to the bottom, and the torah music shared would make everyone higher than they'd ever been, ha ha.

In the Moshav Yeshiva, we would say when someone would draw out a dedication before a hit a leetle too long, or just start talking while holding the joint/bong, giving over some kind of Torah until they forget that there's drugs in their hands: hey man! don't Shlomo that joint !

But no, he was not into getting high or tripping, though he did do both, and his closest students will tell you that it impacted his Torah for sure. The shattering of the ego that lets Torah about holy arrogance or just the sublime oppositeness within every inyan come forth, that depends on two things: breadth of knowledge enough to draw connections between many different ideas, and a certain personal wild openness to, and experience of: G-d unity, in a way that is beyond ego games of Who I think I Am Supposed To Be, what I think someone like me should be doing. He talks in his torahs later about letting go of exactly those things, and as much as the knowledge of chassidic torah opened his mind, so much of that Torah doesn't make sense or interest unless the eyes have already been opened otherwise.

Berkeley freaked Shlomo on, and rather than back away from the challenge of growing in response to the people he was dealing with, rather than retreat into insular dogmatism like many kiruvnauts have done, he rose to the occasion and really learned the psychedelic torah as it came. And through that willingness L'shem Shamayim, he became the vessel through which god's voice would return to Israel.

R Nachman of Breslov was the last to come close to something like that, maybe hillel Zeitlin or R kook, but still on a lower level. There is no Torah like Shlomo Torah, and that is why he is the secret rebbe inside any jewish institution worth it's salt. Some fools think it's just some magic holiness in the music, which is bullshit she b bullshit. The music is only part of the context, the social wilingness to hear something deep, true, and piercing is the other part of the bris, and that's why Karleebach music, as the genre of lesser figures playing his songs, even on key or masterfully, is always a shallow, empty and powerless excersize in self indulgent communalization.

Not that drinking songs around a campfire isn't awesomely special itself, but don't think for a second that that was all that was going on. I'm sure it was sometimes, but what can you do for Jews who just want to feel good about jewishing?

Which is not the highest his torah ever got. There are tapes of him just giving concerts and telling the story of shvartzewolf or the holy miser or something, because a real tzaddik is willing to be whatever is needed of him, and will use that place to plant the seeds of recognition of the holy in people who wouldn't be able to ever notice it afterwards. The baal shem tov, elijah the prophet and their ilk make it potentially safe to be a mystic bum and at least be recognized in some communities as being a holy man as opposed to a threat, don't think i don't appreciate that. But shlomo's deep torah was only heard in the counsels of trippers with vessels.

That is to say, the chassidim smoke(d) some of them, e'en tho he'd gone as far as to strongly discourage herb once legendarily comparing it to Baby Diapers,

Chevre!
Out grow your diapers already!

Yet still some of the highest of his students toke(d) and certainly it was a step on the path to Him, and beyonder! Ya rabbeinu nagila!

(For sure to be continued, but not for a minute. meanwhile, I'm still in Northern Cali. feel free to be in touch if you are too!)

Invite ME to speak at your bookstore or shabbos table!

2006-11-03T20:00:00.000+02:00

Hey. Do we have any fans out in California? I'm out here in Northern Cali checking out schools and friends, If anyone wants to hang out or show me something cool, e-mail me from now until nov 20th. I'm not posting but once more until then so people can see this, and the one post between now and then will be about Shlomo and how he related to drugs.

I am NeedelR@aol.com. That is all.

Sky's the limit?

2006-10-24T03:32:00.000+02:00

Technology is apocalyptic.

This is a snag torah remix. I can't even find the original anymore, nor where I stole it from. All I have is the piece I sampled around a year ago, when I was thinking about the tower of Babel, and here it is, mixed into depth.

Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld explains that the fact that, for the builders of the tower of Babel, the fact that they were using bricks was a tremendous thing in itself. It signified a great technological breakthrough; for the first time ever, people could create their own building materials if none were available.

This led to a general feeling of power and control over their own fate.

The Dor Haflaga (generation of the Tower) were so carried away in this power trip
that they believed they were able to do anything,
including defeating Hashem. Nitzchuni Banai!

Rav Sonnenfeld adds to his point by noting that the second Pasuk in the Perek states that the Dor Haflaga
lived in “a valley in the land of Shinar.”

It seems that if they wanted to build a tower as high as possible
they would have started from a very tall place.

However,
they felt that they should start from a low place in order to accomplish their feat entirely on their own,
without any help.

Had they built on a mountaintop,
they would have been utilizing a “contribution” of height from Hashem
who created the mountain.

Once they had developed such overconfidence, they became wholly dedicated to their cause.

The Brisker Rav notes the extent to which the people became carried away by pointing to the Rashi’s comment that

when the languages were confused
the people still tried to continue building.

However, their confusion led to frustration and eventually murder. The Brisker Rav says that the reason for this is the inherent nature of man’s evil.

Once one has resolved to sin,
nothing will deter him even when his original means fail.

Thus, those involved in the construction
were so set on the completion of their project
that they did not think about abandoning it.

Instead, they acted irrationally and started to kill each other.

(Rabbeinu Heshy Shnitzler once was giving over something very deep, that is already known in the world.
"Why be consistent? Play by different rules, understand and relate to things different all the time. Loose like the Reed, and you can't be knocked down."

This is the level of the criminal Messiah David as opposed to Joseph, the Messiah of consistency and principle, of capital and control. Joseph's investment in grainaries echoes the building of the Tower of Babel, as does the building of bricks echo the harshest demand put on the Hebrew slaves, that they build their own bricks, and do it twice as quick.)

In addition,
even the murders themselves did not halt their work,
and Hashem had to disperse everyone.

(This is a reference to the only tradition we have to justify G-d's smashing of the Tower of Babel.
That the builders valued bricks above humans,
so much so
that if a brick fell,
people would be terribly distressed,
but people fall all the time, fuck 'em, we've got more.)

This episode shows the spiritual depths to which a person can sink once his mind is made up to sin
and the lack of thought and consideration that is possible when one sins.

This point is also made by R’ Yehonatan Eibeschutz, who asks

how it is possible that these people thought they could reach the heavens?

He answers that

the people expected to build a tower high enough to pass the Earth’s gravity,
making them weightless
and allowing them to fly up
to confront Hashem.

It is amazing that they did not bother to consider important things like the time and effort required to make such a tower, the possibility that they would not be able to survive in space,
or the impossibility involved in defeating an all-powerful being.

The lack of forethought demonstrates that they were so set on rebellion
that they did not consider the outcome.
Similarly, any action that we do can have unexpected consequences.

R Yonasan Eibshutz is not sorry for trying, or hoping. Just try not to be offended by the unexpected?

Come to zee party!

2006-10-17T20:38:00.000+02:00

So, I had an article about drugs and torah published in zeek magazine a while back. The article has made it into the print edition, soon to be distributed throughout trendy bookstores and coffee shops across America. Which doesn't mean that anyone will nessesarily read or notice this piece, only that it's there, in case god wants to guide anyone to it.

And, if you're in NYC, there's a release party going on, that I should be at and have evn been counseled to sign copies in exchange of attention.

The food should be good. And the magazine is terrific, despite the occasional crazy hack like me getting in there through connections. Otherwise, it's very professional.

Like some people

2006-10-10T19:02:00.000+02:00

Somewhere there is one big succa, that everyone is in except for me, or so it feels.
Like I'm in an empty refugee camp, wondering where everyone else has gone.

I find myself endlessly trying to be effortless, avoiding recreating previous chills for fear of clinging to a past that will not re-form, even as as I am throwing tribute meats onto the altar of religious accomplishment, hoping that something will form in the fire, with a minimum of personal investment, so that I can walk away unscathed and be ready for the next real thing at any time.

Pathetic gestures are better than no gestures at all? High School taught otherwise, the virtue of not trying for attention being maybe the only effective means of drawing it. PAthetic gestures, I was once unafraid to try, and all they would ever do was scare away the prey.

I heard something good this week, about trying anyway. I heard it from the Ushwar Rebbe in Williamsburg. Sarah Imeinu, our foremother Sarah, doesn't want to have kids. It's a big secret, but it explains why they couldn't have kids.

(Hey kids! here's a secret all purpose birth control agent, guanrateed one hundred percent effective, shnarf, shnarf: Don't want to have kids. Apparently this is very effective in quieting otherwise dogged and intent sperm from their goal, or sealing otherwise penetrable eggs from being breached. It never fails, just as long as you genuinely don't want to get pregnant, which is part of the problem with this method: You might very well want to get pregnant, and just not know. Tread carefully adventurer!)

Yeah, Sarah doesn't want to have kids, why not? Because she's a prophet, and knows how things will turn out. While she's Ok with seeing an Isaac grow up, she's concerned that an Esau is inevitable. All the destruction that Rome wreaks on the whole world, all the cultures burned, all the souls demolished, she doesn't want to be responsible for any of it. Laughing helps her let go.

And so it is with all of us, there's something keeping us from doing things in fear of the destructiveness that will come out of it. And how can a righteous person ever hope to do anything? Only when the prophesy promises that the bad will prove worthwhile.

Who is willing to believe that the bad they cause will prove worthwhile? I have this recurring image of Jesus, tortured in hell every time anyone thanks him instead of G-d, screaming in agony, saying, "why me?" and then remembering, oh right: I chose this. That at least they got Torah somehow.

Vomit. vomitvomitvomit. I hold as often as possible by Frank Miller's "there are no nessesary evils" even as Succos observance can testify to the opposite in halachic practicality. I've found no one who will confirm for me any opinions that it ok to eat anything at all outside of the succa, even as most identified religious people I know in New York are willing to bend on that to various degrees. Succos is the first holiday to be dropped in exile, even as Simchas Torah is the first to be added.

The challenge of the halacha of succos, a friend claimed to me last night, is just how far you'll bother to go. The midrash of succos as the last holiday to be kept before the messiah comes testifies to this, as the nations of the world come before G-d saying:

hey!
It's not fair!
If you had given us the Torah, we would have kept it!

and god says, I did
remember?
You weren't into it.

And they rejoinder
Neither were the Jews!

To which G-d responds
what do you mean?
They kept every word and never broke anything once

Not being able to say anything to what sounds like either a total lie or a profound truth, they respond

If you had made it clear
really clear
what the torah really was
we would have kept it

and god says, oh yeah?
fine.
I'll give you one mitzva
just one
to try out
see how long you keep to it.

The nations say cool!
and god commands them to sit in a sukkah
easy enough, right?

but here's the kicker
it's really hot outside

So HOT
that NOT ONE person will stay in the sukkah
Jew or Gentile

So chazal ask, what kind of test is that?
You're not supposed to stay in the sukkah if it's not fun
that's the Law!
The jews don't stay in any more than the gentiles!

So god responds yeah, you're right guys.
But at least the yidden don't kick the door on the way out
screaming "fucking sukkah!"
like some people might

----------------------------

I was just in Crown Heights. Such a trip!
The black and the jews walk down the same streets
but never seem to randomly interact.
It seemed to bode ill to me, and felt like it didn't want to be penetrated by either side of the divide. What's gonna be?

I made it to a random house party, non-Chabad chabad kids dancing to pop-caribbean dancehall. Not radical kids, straight and radio fed, though most did smoke grass, thank god almighty. I wondered if this kind of obvious music-to-party fusion was as common a year ago, or if it took something to penetrate the mainstream like matisyahu and sean paul before the kids could feel safe at all. I wonder what's going to be, and really hope the universal bridge gets built, even at the expense of our purity.

Which is the main priority of the Jew and Nazi alike, purity. In a world that swirls like a flushed toilet, it seems like the most evil thing in the world is to try to hold on to the pointless. Jews hold that judaism is not pointless, right, but serves very specific divine purposes.

I find myself trapped in my little sukkah in the back yard sometimes this holiday, wanting to welcome everyone, ashamed of how little I have to share re: food, drink, or drugs. Succos is according to one kabbalistic reality tunnel, the fixing of the Taiva for money, which I experience as suddenly really wanting some, so that I can spend it on building culture. I feel so small in here, even as I have in the past resented the need to create big. If we're going to let bad happen for the sake of the good we want, what's the point of feeling bad at all? Idealistic at all?

Just the ebb and flow forever, huh? A very creepy propostion to me, but I hate so much suddenly depending on money to get places quickly, throwing it at any incovinience while the world ages so fast. I hate so much stagnating in one spot, eating and then falling asleep for nothing, for nowhere. I resent so much the shallow Torah that I hear so often, concerned with maintaining the purity of the service, oblivious to the secular need, even threatened by it.

Why don't Jews put all their tzedakah money into feeding the local ghettoes? For the same reason Pharoah wants to enslave the hebrews: So that they won't join our enemies against us, like all privileged children do, once the are sick of being cared for. We as a community don't trust the good will of the strangers we might help, like caring for an injured snake with no real loyalty to you, only the resentment for what you have and what I don't. Jews once fought for civil rights, and were black nationalists wrong for wanting to be in charge of their own movements? Jews felt so hurt after their help was rejected, and it hasn't really felt safe for us as a community to give much to the Not Mine ever since.

God, please give us hearts to want the everything righteously and together, ok? Space to be alone and reflect is nice sometimes, too much with no safe connected place to give it too is not. Open up the channels of connection, and give us easy riding to, hearts to push through the walls of self and share our bounty with our I-dren, amen.

Kippur? I don't even know 'ur!

2006-10-03T20:42:00.000+02:00

What's a Sabbatean Yom Kippur like anyway? Would you have to ritually violate anything? If you had to, how good could it be?

One of the problems with both law-addiction and militant antinomianism is co-ersion: no one likes being forced to do something, even if they also kinda do sometimes.

The shul I grew up with in Williamsburg is the longest running orthodox congregation in New York, and it started on a Yom Kippur some hundred and thirty eight years ago, in response to what people there experienced as progressive co-ersion into a less authentic expression of their religion.

The community in Williamsburg at the time was mostly business people, with tradition on the softer side of priority for the newly Americanizing settlers. Lines between denominations seemed less clear, but the straw that broke the camel's back for the people who would found Cong. Beth Jacob Ohev Shalom was the Organ that was brought in to be played on Yom Kippur. (no, not that kind of Organ! A musical piano-type thing, you perverts.) Freaked a bunch of people out, it did. They left, and started their own thing down the block, where they kept it pretty frum, yet very democratic and modernish in it's administration. It remains the one stronghold of non-chassidic, non "Chareidi" (though no-one in America uses that term) frumkeit in Williamsburg.

I was there for a little bit this Yom Kippur, but spent more time in Manhattan with a community closer to my heart and soul into the present and future.

What is the future of religious Judaism? The process of fundamentalization only goes so far before the kids find something "realer" to latch on to, before all the people locked out of the temple just go and start their own thing. Yitzchak Jordan maintained that the Charedi (what your liberal media calls "ultra-orthodox") world is about to go through some serious changes in the next ten years, as the size and diversity of it/in it spirals out of control. We're talking gay charedi couples openly raising children, very different family/romantic norms becoming possible or acceptable, like in the heyday of progressive Islam, where much greater variety of human experience was tolerated, though never openly condoned, totally accepted and understood with some warmth and humor.

I davene with a minyan of mostly trans-hassidic heretics, scoffing at the fear of Law even as the cried in devotional rapture, singing heartfully and dancing/marching rolling tripping in paroxyms of sacrilicious agony/ecstasy. The liturgy was whole, and very little was skipped, though much was interjected in a variety of mad sequitars and song tangents, mostly having to do with being acknowledged, heard, accepted or nursed by G-d.

We were all fully clothed most of the time, with a bit of pants dropping during neilah, but we were all so naked the whole time. Screaming the truths that were clear, or passionately and mockingly screaming the truths so false they had to be ridiculed to be genuinly felt.

I personally found I couldn't go into upstairs rooms where fasts were being flouted more openly, and breathed into the acceptance and resistance that I felt as it would come. I have had my religious boundaries, we all do, religious or not, have religious boundaries, of what god we tolerate and which god we smash, or at least, avoid, if we're too sociable to smash someone else's god without permission. Because what do I know what someone else needs, right? If I know something is hurting someone, then I can try to pry and butt in, if I think I know what will help, as if, right?

But in the sanctuary of the Messiah, judgment works differently. I don't experience it as stopping, just operating on a different standard.

I was scared at first, that something sacred was about to be dirtied and ridiculed, but that wasn't at all exactly quite what was going on, though some of that did go with relationship to the liturgy now and then, the hearts were pure and strangely open to expression and attention and engagement, we want to be honest what are we doing here?

I HAVE NOT made it to the level of ignoring Yom Kippurs ever, eating the anti-sacred feast of swine and swiss, though many of us had been for different periods of time, for different reasons, in different ways. I was really scared at one point, what am I doing here? and the obvious answer was "davening" in the most realest shul I can find.

BECAUSE WE DON'T usually ask the strange questions, for fear of losing the high holiness experiences in the child singing states. Going Outside and looking analytically is like performing surgery on your girlfriend: potentially life saving, utterly un-romantic even as it is appreciated, doesn't make the bounce and passion catch fire or anything, the way religion should.

It's confusing when the boundaries dissolve around you, and it's left in your hands: what is the holy that YOU are building? Together, there is an ear for the call and the response, if someone cares about their community, they will not impose their wills against what the people around can handle, and if they care about you, they will trust for as long as they can handle your direction.

Yom Kippur everyone knows, is a day like Purim, without judgement even as the judgement is in everything. I was really scared, and then comforted when the service started with the invocation, old as anything: Thank you lord, who has permitted us to pray with sinners.

As if, I say again, my clueless mantra, as if these were the sinners. Not the liars who populate your churches and synagogues looking for atonement through pious sitting and waiting for a day to end, feeling righteous about a willingness to not ask questions, but to quietly bow heads saying amens to words that are not understood, for the sake of what?

Alternately, shallow and self indulgent editing of the holiday's practices are also often experienced as lame, inauthentic. Some people certainly appreciate the lightness, their kids might not.

So what's going to be our future? The fear of the libertine is the fear of unsustainable self indulgence, ha ha ha, as if every religious community in the "civilized" world wasn't practicing THAT already!

But Yom Kippur for me is an eternity of not-judging, ironically, not exactly. There's nothing but judging of indulgences and evils done as Wrong and Bad, and a fair amount of surrendering finger pointing. I'm all bad, You're all good, and you're in charge.
The sins of the community and the sins of the individual are blurred into sameness, if you don't have one to apologize for, you have the other.

I alternately regretted all things I did do that harmed, and all the things I didn't do to stop harm. I laughed at the sins that I am (we are)actually even a little proud of, and gushed at the mystery of what to do?

God and us gets very blurred lately, and it's ironic the difference in identification of the true God with "You" and the ego with "I" as opposed to the new age dictum that the true God, the good God who's all true all all trustable is in fact, the true "I" from which it is always fitting to speak. Who knows how god wants to be understood/understanding tomorrow, or even later today? Only the passionate and honest, may they long live and be free to be.

Who's Law?

2006-09-22T20:42:00.000+03:00

The question recurring with Dena Dimalchuso is how far goes. How much authority does The Law of the Land really have to control Jewish Law?

And the real answer is unclear to me, but the truth is as much as you let it. That is, we as The Communities of Israel have the right to accept secular moral insightLaw, with all it’s nuances and revelations, and it’s sensitivities are to be learned and understood, deeply incorporated deep into our souls as much as blows our minds.

For example, who are you?

New York State Law declares that you who are whoever you call yourself, that is, your name if you just decide to change it, you can just start calling yourself someone, and that’s your name. There’s a formal ritual for changing ones name, but it’s totally unnesesary, as far as NY state law!

This also applies to religious denomination.

Whatever one chooses to identify hirself as is who they are. whatever list they check when the census comes it. That’s all it takes to change ones religion, according to ny state law, as far as I know.

So does that mean that the law is such? Are forbidden marriages only forbidden be cause of the host culture? That wouldn’t explain Biblical morality, but that is to say, we are strongly affected by the people around us, however we define our cultural membranes. But does anyone out there in blogger land have any idea, how much has local gentile culture been allowed to affect the growth and development of Our Law and how it works?

I ask/say this in the context of emerging morality: lets say that the world decides that something that was permitted for a long time no longer will be, like polygamy once, and lets say “war” now. Lets say that the nations of the world came together and made war illegal: would it be assur for us too?

That’s what happened with R’ Gershom, no? The gentiles grew a certain taboo, decided something was less civilized or less right, and so it was.

There’s a conceit about the harmonious perfection of halacha to guide one to and through the best good, and to be trust worthy more than flaky Gentile law, which would not compromise certain nations right to do what they love doing, or live for, right? What we received on Har Sinai was something perfect? Or were our demands just lovingly accepted, and called perfect for all generations?

What is the part of Halacha that is the center, unchanging, unique and reliable? Re: what is the Law of The Land an arbiter of What G-d Wants Us to Believe?

I ask in terms of moral development. Let’s say that the greatest innovations in secular law from the last couple hundred years have to do with equality; between one religion and another, between men and women, blacks and whites… L’ Maisay it’s not true, equality was never established in the world, and the remora of unjust law hovers around the entire system of “Justice” like flies around a carcas, but is that because of the laws themselves? The system that rewards Effort at the expense of True Need is bound to give priviledge to those who demand more and neglect those who don’t… To the degree that a better way has not been established as reliable to a populace is the degree that A Better Law is not The Law.

Really, according to G-d there’s only one law, one reward, and one punishment. According to what you do, is what will be done unto you. Everything else is just clarification and structure, language and a standard for how to get Our People together, what to feel safe expecting, demanding together from our reality.

The World’s Law is all about creating a general ideal for the sake of training a population to be sensitive, but the most visible difference between a Human and a Machine is the willingness to tolerate flexibilty in law enforcement as it becomes clear that a law is meant not for this situation.

For example: last Shabbos, I came to visit someone in an apartment building with an auto locked front door.
I had never been to this house or these people before, sent over from someone else’s house, told to come up to the eighth floor and listen for people singing. Criminal mastermind that i am, I arrived, looking for a way to get past the two buzzer locked doors. Is deception nessesary here, or even effective? There was someone downstairs, loitering in front. Does he live here? How can I explain what i’m trying to do?

It’s shabbos, so I dare not actually ask him or anyone to let me in, I dare not really even need to get in too desperately… I slipped past the first locked layer as someone left the building, ideal according to my law, a maximum of Just Being and Slipping Without Needing, but behold! A second locked door!

An old lady comes in through the door, along with a young asian dude. They see me standing there, and before they have a chance to react suspiciously, I start off with as much honesty as I can muster.

“Hi! I’m a religious Jew, and I have some friends living upstairs, doing a whole ritual party!”

Quickly, old lady states the law, covering herself, and creating a safe boundary.

You’ll have to have them buzz you in. We have a rule.

I smile. “No, I can’t buzz, and they won’t answer. For that matter, I don’t even know what the apartment # is, just that it’s 8, uh, B.”

There’s no eight B in this building! I’ve lived here for forty year, and there’s never been an 8B!

(and it was true. The apartments were numbered 1-28. Where did I get 8B from?)

Rationally, ruleistically, that should have been the end.

I said to Asian dude, c’mon, if you want, escort me upstairs, and we’ll see if we hear the party.

And he took responsibilty for me, and we went up, and the sounds of Yidden singing acheinu was audible from the elevator. He smiled and waved me off.

Happy new year, but how far does it go? ha hahahahahahahahahahaa. We can forgive anything as long as we don’t see the damage that it’s still doing– and alot of sins aren’t really doing any damage, so we can let them go…

…or, it’s damge we’re happy to receive, seeing how we once did the same thing, and really want to just pay it off at last. L’chaim, to happy lives either way.

lies will set you free only if they're funny.

2006-09-01T02:37:00.000+03:00

Did some hanging around teenage Jewish girls last week. Ali G is massive, late at night. It kind of a trippy thing he's doing, echoing the post modern anti-media of Tom Green or Punk'd or something, with the main difference being: how much do you symapthize with the "victim" of the comedy?

Ali G's shtick was sophomoric in theory, brilliant in execution: Establish himself as a genuine B-list celebrity: appear in a Madonna video (the queen of zen media manipulation), make a full-on movie, and appear in public events, throwing parties and promoting the self Totally In Charachter-- and then start using the fame accumulated for ridiculous guerilla improv, interviewing guests who don't know that he's kidding. they sign all the legal releases, in the hopes of

Tom Green was much creepier, for he appeared to have no sympathy for the average Joe, for his parents, or anyone else in his vicious, disturbing will to transcend the assumed boundaries of social discourse. Some people really were touched by that willingness, the greatest moment i remember, where Tom Green touched my heart, was when, once, he was walking into some kind of high security situation, carrying some kind of bulky something-or-other, and a security guard tries to stop him.

So he just responds: "Japanese instruction! Japanese instruction!" And continues walking on his way, unmolested, because he looks and sounds like he knows what he's doing.

Due credit to Tom Green, the secret hope of his comedy, as revealed later, was to humanize us, and make us feel each other deeply, not to mask the pain of alienation and to force people to deal with him in the states he'd be in, rather than avoid looking him or anyone else in the eye. His home phone number is on his website now. Isn't that crazy?

------------------------

A friend quoted to me an idea last night from Heinlein's A Stranger In A Strange Land: This guy comes in from mars, he's human, but he grew up with martians, doesn't know from anything, so he's noticing human behavior. Humor, right? He says, what's that? how does it work? People can't really explain it so well, so he does his own research, studying people and their humor, to see how it works.

He comes to the conclusion that Human humor is basically about seeing someone else in pain, and enjoying it.

Which doesn't sound so whole, right? So he clarifies. It's not because people want to see others hurt that they laugh at their pain, it's the opposite: It hurts to see others in pain. And the only way to alleviate the pain of terrible sensitivity is to laugh. The people who are laughing the hardest, are the ones who are the most sensitive, and they have to laugh so that they won't hurt so much more.

This echoes a Mark Twain principle. The secret source of laughter is pain he says, and there is no laughter anymore in heaven, though there is smiling.
R' Shlomo Carlebach elaborates, there's a line in psalms about, when redemption comes, our mouths will we whole with laughter, that all laughter in this world is between gritted lips, with a strong taste of darkness, but the day will come, when our mouths laughter is whole, and the darkness only from memories. One the last day, the righteous people are crying over the grave of the devil, not laughing victoriously. Speedily in our days, Amen.

Laughter comes in war, in hells, in cartoons and over problems so crazy, they boggle the mind with their madness. "Absurd", they call it. The pop genius of Ali G is that it's easy to laugh at his "victims." Racists, sexists, shallow and vapid models and self important politicians. Some of his straight men can win the game by being piercingly honest and saying truth past the ego manipulations that his ridicule depends on. Those trying to keep his approval or oblivious to the joke lose the game, and will never be respected by a generation of children. Poor Kazakstan.

But see how far he gets, just by acting like he knows what he's doing? hasn't gotten killed yet, and I have to wonder, who else was in on the joke from the beginning?

Madonna, I maintain, was the first Celebrity to publicly lend Ali G legitimacy, more proof that she really has a secret plan. Robert Anton Wilson argued this years ago when her first movie came out, comparing her to Orson Wells in F for Fakery in his seminal essay Fake documentaries and "real" money. She's a genius, one with a real message and a real plan,. only part of which is/was "make money."

I like the idea of happy conspiracies, coming to trick the world into being more aware. It's an idea that gives me alot of hope, and makes me want to trust the culture process.

It's the crucial assumption in a fair amount of chassidic rebbe stories, the ones where the rebbe is in some way proving his either supernatural or just plain folk-sensitive powers of realization of what-someone-needs by giving strange advice, or worse, actively being a weird cypher in their lives, like the Baal Shem demanding food from a pauper, forcing him to lose everything, only then giving him a heart to be desperate enough to pray to G-d for anything much. Madonna, it must be noted, is a big Baal Shem Tov fan, most of her children's books are only extended versions of stories from him.

Spiritual confidence can be dangerous, and i feel like the right to be the Zen Trickster Rebbe depends on the infinitude of the principle being expressed through the mockery. Take for example, Good ole' Shmuel Munkis, the Chabad Jester. He mind fucks the hungry chassidim by taking the pot of chulent stew that everybody's waiting for, and spilling it out after an extended tease dance with it. Everyone's furious and is ready to lynch him, until the chef runs it, crying warnings that that the stew was accidently cooked with non-kosher meat, and so they befuddledly ask Shmuel: how did you know?

And he laughs and says, I didn't. I just figured if y'all wanted it so badly, there must have been something wrong with it.

auh!

But that's a nice one. The enemy is confused with the personal desire, not the external Other. That might be a better value, at least for as long as one is playing the You vs. Me game, it might as well be the me vs. not quite the truest me.
Steven Colbert is doing something similar, becoming the hated enemy for the sake of ridiculing him, more on the level of showing Us All how simutaneously powerful and understood the Arrogant Republican is, and how foolish and blind it makes him. The enemy is forced to understand too, and that's why Colbert is morally superior to Sasha Cohen. Ali G at the broadcasters convention could never have made the world understand anything so clear about the crimes they are commiting as Colbert did that brave night, and Ali G never seems to change or challenge the hearts of anyone he's fucking with, just encouraging us to laugh at Them, usually for their ideals and idealism. God, irony is SO early nineties! And intellectual detached superiority is so eighteen nineties.

I do appreciate that he got Boutros Boutros Ghali to say "listen to Bob Marley." Some part of me gets a thrill out of whenever either God or marijuana are mentioned in any context, especially in an insightful or knowledgeable way, it's like having a close friend getting shouted out at a big concert. I know that guy! he IS cool!

but yeah, i'll tell you next time about what LSD taught me about the secret love conspiracy of the Pope and R Yehuda Hanasi, and how that's why the CIA tolerates psychedelic culture-- only on Cannabischassidis.

2006-08-27T07:50:00.000+03:00

The truth is
I don't need food or drugs as much as I have done either both
On some level.

When life is so fufilling
neither is attractive,
when I'm in love and it doesn't hurt
Or when it hurts, and i'm so happy to feel
I don't need drugs

I love that there is an alternative to hurting and bitterness, and
I would love to live in a world that didn't drive me crazy all the time sometimes
I appreciate
the things that satisfy and sweeten
in the least destructive way possible.

Stevia:
Is the least destructive sugar
Raw Honey:
dries and cleanses but still
rots teeth.
Maple syrup:
is cooling, but alas!
dampness is not healthy for me anymore

Sugar makes me slow, sad, weak, fat
and once I trusted it so much
back when I was a child

Marijuana
when it's good
slows and speeds
burn out is No Fun.

I can't feel the world anymore when I smoke too much weed
I have smoked too much weed sometimes.

Lord! give us strength and sense
to know when too much is that
and to realize when the sweets that once saved us
is too much
and let go of needing that
to make me feel ok

Not the suffering, and not it's reward?
Lord! give me a heart to love pain
and fear not death
to be aware
of why I consume,
and have access to the best consolations ever

extra to share
and enough will to refuse
save me from the karma of fucking people up
or over
or under
or just leaving them behind?

2006-08-20T11:00:00.000+03:00

Even where marijuana has been legalized, do the dangerous side effects of the drug militate against its use?

Does compassion for the patient override concerns of possible longterm harm?

Under which circumstances may a patient put himself into a potentially harmful situation?

If the non-medicinal properties of marijuana promote a feeling of wellbeing so that a patient feels relief, does that constitute a valid reason to write a prescription?

A historic halachic responsa offering the best argument for the halachic priority of medicinal need superceding the dreaded Dina D'iMalchuso's cannabis prohibition, in a sober and pious way.

Our regard for civic obedience and responsibility
may indeed be a yardstick of our ability to sanctify God's Name
and be a light to the nations.

Because marijuana is an illicit drug,
one might assume that it is halachically prohibited, as well.

However,
dina d'malchuta dina does not apply to matters of issur v'heter-
obligatory or prohibited activities, such as Shabbat, kashrut, inheritance or divorce. It applies only to monetary, commercial or civil law,
and not to religious law.

Since alleviation of pain and suffering is a religious obligation,11 then dina d'malchuta dina does not apply.

Wow.

Furthermore,
some poskim [rabbinic decisors] stipulate that dina d'malchuta dina is only binding when it does not oppose Torah law,
i.e. only when it relates to matters not dealt with explicitly by the halachah.

Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Adret (Rashba) cautions us that the Torah is of primary and paramount importance for the Jewish people.

Were we to defer to the law of the land to regulate every activity, we would effectively nullify much of Jewish law and abrogate the Torah itself.

However, to rule a certain way because it is the law of the Gentiles is forbidden, and it is prohibited by the Torah. If we were to accept this argument, we would nullify the first-born son's rights of inheritance and uproot all of jewish law. What need would we have for holy books written for us by Rebbi and Ravina and Rav Ashi; Jews could simply teach their children the laws of the Gentiles and build altars in the Gentile houses of study.

God forbid that such a thing ever happen to the Jewish people; God forbid. The Torah itself would wear sackcloth.

There are those who suggest that dina d'makhuta dina applies only to dinei malkhut, i.e. those areas in which the State has legitimate interests needed for the proper administration of government and for the smooth functioning of society. These include taxes, roads, traffic regulations, safety, etc. Laws that infringe on the social, interpersonal, judicial, cultural, religious and personal areas of life are excluded from dina d'makhuta dina and are regulated by Torah law.

Who is this guy writing?

"Dr. Wallace Greene received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Yeshiva University and has taught courses in Ancient and Medieval Jewish History, Rabbinics, Talmud and other Judaica at Yeshiva University, Queens College, Upsala College, and Columbia University. ...he presently is Director of Jewish Educational Services for the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Northern New Jersey. Dr. Greene has given hundreds of lectures across North America on a wide range of topics and for a broad spectrum of groups and is author of dozens of articles on topics related to Jewish education in publications such as Journal of Jewish Education, Jewish Book World, Jewish Education News, The Jewish Week, and the Journal of Jewish Communal Service"

Sounds like a legit source to me. But, having scanned google, looking for discussion of this statement, haven't found any public controversy over it. The legend at the bottom of the page implies that it was given over by an American Jewish Congress summer event. I wonder how it was received? I hope mentioning it here doesn't get him in to trouble, he sounds like arighteous, g-d fearing fella. Check out his response to religious concerns over collegiate assimilation. And his kids to the third generation are religious, bli ayin hara!

Casuistic and philosophical arguments can also be mustered to nullify dina d'makhuta dina in this case.

State officials will not prosecute patients who use medical marijuana, and the prospect of federal enforcement is fairly remote. This then begs the question of defining dina d'makhuta dina in our case.

Does it refer to laws on the books or only to laws that are enforced?
Logic would dictate that dina d'makhuta dina only applies to laws that are enforced.

Just as a king is only a king if he has loyal subjects, so too laws that are not enforced eventually lose their status as laws.

At issue, however, is still the question of the feasibility and advisability of a physician prescribing marijuana. In those states where it is legal there seems to be minimal risk. In states where it is still illegal, how far must an observant physician go to help alleviate pain and suffering by prescribing marijuana?

Cannadvice

2006-08-06T07:54:00.000+03:00

mail bag! Today, I get to play advice columnist, encouraging people to destroy their lives and souls with drugs, as opposed to sex.
Kidding! Right?

Hey Yosef,
Hi.
I really like your blog a lot ,and I have a question for you.

It might be kind of heavy.
I just started becoming observant (like 3x a day tefilah observant) and I have run in to a problem. I'm also pretty observant of getting high all the time.

BUT. I've been having trouble really praying from my heart when I'm stoned. Do I just need to get used to it? Do you pray whilst high? Or is it meant to be interfering, because your thoughts should be clear blah blah blah. Funny thing is, I can daven just fine when I'm drunk. I don't really like being drunk so much though. I haven't yet tried while on hallucinogens. That seems like it might be a little scary.
Anyway.

I really like the stuff you have to say. I find it very insightful (at first I wrote "inciteful" which isn't a word, apparently, but I think it might be kind of also what I meant) and inspirational. I hope you maybe have some advice for me. If not that's okay, and you should be well anyway.
---KavanaKnights

The prohibition of R' Moshe Feinstein on smoking grass depends on three things:

It damages your health

It's illegal

It takes you away from Torah learning.

TO THE DEGREE that these three things are priorities, marijuana would have to be contraindicated.

We were looking at the text of the early cheremim (bans/excommunications) against Chassidis, which some in the community have said should be studied as halacha, to see what chassidus was about, and how we should live. One of the major gripes that one of the cheremim lists is the fear that the Chassidim were making it out as if davening and cleaving to G-d was more important than learning Torah, which, they dare say, is only for the sake of making davening and cleaving to G-d possible!

!

One would have to follow then, by that priority, al pi chassdut, if marijuana makes davening hard for you, then it's assur for you. Buut, if you wanna be a Litvak like Rava in the gemara, ridiculing those who spend much time in prayer, then it's not a problem, as long as it doesn't inhibit your learning.

Some "rabbis" have even gone so far as to say that any Torah learned while stoned "doesn't count" because it's "not real" whatever that means. I really don't hold like that, but it's important to recognize the natural limits and powers of different medicines. As much as we'd like to treat it as all redeeming, all improving, marijuana is not nessesarily good for everything, though intention can be very powerful in guiding what it can do for you.

I've had some powerful hodaah/praise/appreciation moments from smoking grass, usually as the clouds of however ?I was feeling lift off, and some new clarity sets in. But for me, it's always been a little unpredictable. I've known people who really liked smoking either right before hallel, or, alternately, right before the reading of the incense offering, either at the beginning or the end of the service.

Some say only at the end of davening, being careful not to "eat" (smoking is a form of consumption) before shacharis, though there are lots of stories of Alter Chassidim smoking after birchos hashachar, after morning Shma but before ketores and Psukei D'zimra. One might want to assume that may have been Levi Yitzchak's style, though maybe not.

Marijuana tends to make whatever one is doing while smoking more interesting, but makes it harder to switch from one action to another. Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders of days of yore says smoking while vacuuming makes vacuumoing better, but smoking while sitting on the couch makes vacuuming harder. Hamayvin Yaavin.

I like davenning stoned sometimes, though it's a great breslov discipline to daven under the influence of nothing, satisfied by nothing, firstish thing in the morning, without even have drunk any tea or coffee.

One of the major effects of being High is a profound sense of satisfaction, which naturally can make davenning less compelling. While one might get benefit from playing the game of getting stoned, and then rallying the conciousness back into sensitivity through strong effort, it seems rather besides the point to me: If getting high makes davening difficult, don't get high before davening sounds like good advice to me.

It might depend what you mean by davening, I guess. Davening a proper Shmoneh Esrei is assur when one is drunk according to the shulchan aruch, and probably the gemara. How drunk? So drunk that one can't stand before a king.
Get it? Ganja, though often treated as such, is not a pancea, and demand to be used only in it's right time.
I like making L'chayims on hits, setting intentions on what the healing to come from this smoking should be. Some Native American tribes are very into praying over the pipe or cigarrete, and if it can be holy, great. But no reason to force it to work together.

Marijuana has been good for me in processing information, not in receiving new information, so I avoid it when doing things that i'm not used to, or learning how to do better. I'd gotten in some trouble in High School getting stoned before a film criticsm that I was to present, in the hopes of stoney insights coming. Instead, it just made it hard for me to remember what I was talking about.

Drinking is a different whole trip. Drinking opens the heart to be willing to express truth without fear, even to itself, and as such can help with hisbodedut, with living interactive telling-g-d-how you really feel prayer sometimes.

Although, i've had charedi friends who for years would make themselves pattur (absolved) from all mitzvos by just being drunk all the time.

I have a practice of rarely smoking during the day, unless it's way cloudy and i don't need to use my straight head. Being high all the time, ideally, maybe shouldn't have to depend on any substrate to set it off, although i'm told it's very difficult for any one who doesn't eat brown rice at all to be really happy.

Now, davenning while tripping is something else. I have a thing sometimes of doing shma while tripping, to set the trip off a bit or just to make soemthing cosmic happen. I have had really good succes with this a few times, opening up profound insight into the different things Shma is saying to the children of Israel, and relating differently to the voice of G-d revealed therein. But that's probably because i'm very comfortable and familiar with the Shma, though I am kind surprised to get to it in davenning sometimes, and see what it actually says. It seems radically new and powerful in some of those ritual moments, so...

R' Zalman Schechter Shalomi wrote long ago about his first trip, where he opened up a siddur expecting the words to jump off the page, and was disapointted in how dead the davening felt to him. He lalter atributed that lack in inspiration to a lack of relationship to his davenning, a lack of real developed connection with the words he'd been saying his whole life. Welp, better late than never...

It might be scary, especially if it's new, the davenning, and mystically dangerous. Once you start the bracha, you're locked in for the ride, and it might even be possible to exempt someone who's already tripping from davenning, because one is not chayuv to say a full shmoneh Esrei on the road, for fear of theives or attackers, be they internal or external. I heard from R' Shaul Nelson some years ago a gemara saying that one is puttur from davening for three days after a trip, because their daas, their awareness is not yet settled. On that basis, if you wanted, you could skip davening in order to focus on the trip, if davening isn't part of it. Except for krias Shma, which you could only skip on your wedding night, or at a grateful dead show, as learned out from the Meis Mitzva described in the first mishna in brachos. Look it up, you'll see what I mean.

Shma while tripping is pretty harmless, I'd have to say though. It's not so long, it can lead you into more davening if you want it, or be a nice place to get off and focus on each letter and how it feels on your tongue, and hear the sound of the language first forming and spinning off in different directions, from settled in a place to going on the road, with little signs by your heart and mind to bring you back home whenever you're lost.

Which, it occured to me one time, might be alot of why davening in a minyan and wearing tsitsis is so important: If someone's lost from their people, it's an easy way to find one of us again, and be able to get help to find their way back home.

But yeah, bottom line, we don't have to smoke weed all the time, and maybe the less we do the more powerful it is when we do. Like sex, not having any can be terribly frustrating or terribly liberating, depending on how much we though we needed it to feel whole doing anything. And taking time off, especially regularly, makes the time on so much more meaningful.

L'chayim.

What a g-d wants, what a girl needs.

2006-08-02T16:20:00.000+03:00

In my travels this summer, I got to meet some amazing people.

In one town, there was a beautiful river at the end of an arborium, with a foot path built leading into the river. There, past a certain point, the rocks have been arranged to create a heart shape river flute, leading the water in subtle harmonious song.

He claims to have been instructed in this task by his god, personally, at the same time as he was given the gift of tongues. He would pray in both english, and a tongue language that would seem to include hebrew, aramaic, chaldean, arabic and myriad other ancient languages in it's expressiveness. He was given this too by his god, along with many lessons every day.

He spoke about humility, learning that one cannot control G-d's will, only pray in deep faith and listen for what will come. We'd been learning the Inyan of Tzaddik Gozer, Hashem Mikayem for a little bit the last little while, and he responded to that idea with a very humble: G-d will do whatever he wants to do.

-------------------------------------------------------

God tells someone to be quiet and stop talking about whatever they're talking about twice. Once to Moshe Rabbeinu, and once to Truth itself.

Moshe Rabbeinu is very troubled over the mystery of G-d's will. He wants to know it and recieve it as clearly as possible, but while he's up There, taking it all down, he's troubled by a big question.

Why do some Tzaddikim suffer and some Rishaim flourish?
Which is an extention of a larger question,

What really pleases you?

Which, on a darker level, is connected to the functional half of religion. The real question, the cynincal buisness man within might say is:

How do we get what we want?

Tell us clearly, the honest buisness man sweetly and respectfully asks, what it is we have to give you in order to get what we want. If we let you check our ingredients, turn on the fire, THEN will you buy our product?

And on a very tachlis, heady level, this is what Torah and Mitzvos are for, right, chas v' shalom? Rain in it's season, protection for our children and friends, food and clothing.

And everybody knows and feels this deep down. When we're children, we can have whatever we want, and if we don't, we cry. We explore to see what's worth wanting, what's worth tasting. And if we're not fed, we feel ourselves dying.

At some point we're told that we will only get the things we want, we'll only get fed the food we want, if we complete some tasks, accomplish some service, or, at least, don't do the bad things that piss mommy and daddy off. Ask the "right" way, and anything can be ours, right?

Moshe is coming before G-d, having learned all kinds of right ways to do so, and finally having been invited a little bit in, to ask for what he/we wants. And he asks the infinity question in response, what can we do to get hwat we want?

He has learned to phrase the question in chen and kavod, in charm and honor, how to do it exactly right. And he's told a bunch of things, one of which is, you'll never get it right, and you'll never have a flat way of knowing what's on my mind. "i'll do as I see fit" we learn in brachos.

Moshe asks about the crowns on the letters, what are these for? What are we supposed to do with these? And Hashem tells him, don't worry, someone will come along who will learn things out of them. As if to say: someone will come who understands it better than you, the delicate, strange ebb and flow of my will.

How? By dying horribly and happily. R' Akiva sees destruction and has learned to be consoled by it, sees good people suffering and has learned to see the virtue in it. Moshe Rabbeinu not so, "this is Torah, and this it's reward?"

As if to say maybe "is this what we're working so hard for?" If Torah and tzidkes doesn't earn your protection and master your will, then what good is it? I thought we had a deal: We do the good in your eyes, and you do the good in ours."

To which G-d says, Shut up! That's how It came up in thought. That's how we want it.

The Gemara in Brachos asks the question, why do some tzaddikim suceed, some suffer, some Reshaim suceed, and some suffer? Because if suffering in this world is good, then great, lets do that, if that's enlightenment, but no! Some Tzaddikim don't have to suffer. And if success in this world is a sign of divine protection, then great, but why do some Reshaim suceed and some fail?

So they answer, it depends on totality. A tzaddik gamur only suceeds, and a total rasha only suffers, they say. What does this mean?

It occured to me that it has to do with grace, What G-d Likes, which changes all the time sometimes, as the ebb and flow of what's cool to G-d changes, as the balance tips in any given direction, as g-d's dark side is charmed, as is bright side is charmed.

The Torah is to help us understand, feel and relate to Hashem's struggle, maybe. His struggle to learn what is it that I really want, now and/or forever. To the degree that it can do that, it's really torah.

Aaaron Genuth mentioned to me seeing in Moshe Idel's book on Chassidus, Between Magic and Exctacy something that surprised him, the idea that amongst controversial innovations of the chassidic movement was calling the things that Rebbes were giving over "Torahs." As if any new Torah could come down since the gemara!?

The Chassidim of the maggid justified this by claiming a gemara somewhere that described Torah as being something with seventy faces and seventy interpretations, saying that anything that was given over deep enough to mean seventy different tthings in different contexts, that's called Torah, and the words of the Maggid surely apply.

So is Tisha B'av mourning or moshiach? Once again, all we can do is listen for what Hashem wants today. Please lord, bless us to be with you in your will of what time it is Right Now, and how you want us to live. Please help us indulge our truest desires, in the way that only you can: with the wonderuful things that we cannot control, only appreciate when they come. Give us hearts to know when to accept the good, and when to be as unsaisfied with it as you are.

2006-08-01T20:06:00.000+03:00

If I was a scientist
I would put all my effort,
and the effort of my friends
into building a sustainable
solar powered air conditioner

This has been your stoned thought for the morning.

a better Law has been illegal

2006-07-13T05:57:00.000+03:00

heyy

back in a world where law almost makes sense, and nothing good is forbidden, rainbow was lovely, and deep things were expressed back and forth...

Meanwhile, Israel is all up and whoa and the Lord only know what's gonna be with this whole mess. It's a little scary that it's happening now, during the three weeks, although messianic redemptions are happening pretty often, it's still... troubling.

I'm in boulder Colorado now, the softest place in the U.S., where the poor can eat for free if they get to the right places on time, and rich let everything go. No one seems to lock their dors, and the cover charges get as low as two or three dollars for some pretty impressive music.

I was listening to some pretty impressive music erev shivaser b'tammuz, when suddenly I got really concerned. I looked around and saw people dancing, and suddenly, I really sarted to worry. I had visions of people playing while accusations built up behind them, and then angry left out ignored masses burning down the holy city on the mountain top.

How much fun can we have before we have to worry again? Nomian, un-messianic judaism, it feels like, is designed to have just enough fun, with just enough offerings to G-d and justice to be able to do so with a clear concience. There is a level of feeling good about doing something without having to justify it, and maybe i'm not there yet.

The little voice of mind telling you that you don't deserve the good you have, it can be listened to with a loving smile, quietly recieved and taken in with a full heart, and action can either follow or not follow, depending on the need of the moment. The voice in your head does not like to be ignored, it doesn't mind being affectionately quieted by higher truth... if the need being raised turns out not to be a) pressing b) true or c) anything I can help with.

And it's never C), right?, it's just very often leaving the dishes for someone else to wash because i'm busy. Or ready to be busy, ready to go do something else, something i'm already commited to.

That's the nice thing about commitments, they can free you from other immediate needs, and it's also the terrible thing about them, that they force insensitivity to the needs of the moment.

That's one of the reasons Rainbow is so special, Shabbos is so special, right? Commitments are almost assur, at least as far as Right Now. What are you doing on tuesday? Shut the fuck up, I don't say, I don't say, how dare I acknowledge tuesday when I'm in right now.

Hirhurim mutarim, reflections are permitted, so I can ask where are you from, how did you get here, I can talk about a plan I made before, as if it were a cute little story about something that once happened.

I can go on a mission, I can respond to immediate need. The garbage needs taking out, right now, for now, the dishes need washing, the couch needs dragging, as long as it's for right now, I can commit into it, and now i'm free, oseik b'mitzva means I don't have a single other thing to worry about in the world.

IT would have been nice to do a super long shalos sheudis at Jerusalem camp maybe, Opened it up into something very group talkie-singie--- maybe next year, it can be more populistic. Jerusalem camp was mellow, except maybe on shabbos, despite having the best and most convenient location ever. And in this one way, I appreciate how purposeless it felt-- we weren't trying to get anybody into anything, just do our thing, maybe in a way that lets people in. This is the conflict of Kiruv, right? If I don't make the party accessible, what's going on meaningful, I really am cutting you out. And why do that to the world? Buut, if i'm only doing it, or even largely doing it, just for the sake of getting you involved with me and my tribe, then what are we really doing?

We seem to be in a hurry to leave shabbos usually, and it's a little mysterious why. Isn't Shabbos fun? Why is Shalos Shuedis rushed so often? I made commitments for motsei shabbos, so now i'm free of having to spend time with it... ha! It's the easy way to end a conversation that you don't wanna have, right? Oops, gotta go, but it's been nice talking to you.

Is that dishonest? sure, but it might be the only way out without feeling like you're avoiding the immanent.

The Immanent.

God loves us so much, alets us visit places and times when it really feels as if maybe everybody is cool and a righter law reigns, and in the face of such good, it's interesting what personal moral and values come out being questioned and which verified.

I Do Believe that in this life we experience messianic moments where judgement and law are ignored for the sake of love/truth, a.k.a. desire clarified. Rainbow gives over it's own dina d'malchuto, it's own law of the community, where some things that in most places have to be so tznious, so controled, suddenly don't have to be.

property
nudity
and drugs

People feel safe giving everything away if they have enough and trust that they are cared for forever.

and it's nice to live in that on a large communal scale sometimes/all the time, I wonder how long we can hold it together

Josh says that it's the temporaryness that lets rainbow be, if we were holding on to land, responsible for much besides building moving and cleanup, we'd start to fight/hate each other real fast.
Land control leads to Cain killing Abel, to survive.

Boulder Colorado is testing that theory a bit, it's really nice here, and has been for at least a while. Thirty years of peace? So far so good...

Progressive, safe places, where some norms are experimented with raise the question: How careful did we really have to be? About drugs nudity, and property, I mean. And really, what i'm talking about is sex.

Parshas Pinchas came and went. Controversial theoretically, good, upstanding moral chassidim will do their best to explain it away, making deep and irrelevant points about what pinchas is giving over, in an attempt to avoid talking about what's really going on.

The best I heard was Rav Gavriel in Boulder, saying what's going on with Pinchas?

Cosbi and Zimri, and Israelite prince and a Midianite Woman, have public sex, amidst a bunch of Israelites falling for Midianite women in the desert and serving their God, the Baal Peor.

Following this, a plague hits all the people of Israel. So, Pinchas, a high priest, kills them with his spear, and hangs up the bodies for all to see. What's going on with Pinchas?

He's a cohen
Cohanim are supposed to be all peace, love, and reconciliation, right?
And, yet, he has this compulsion to do something else
something that other people would say he shouldn't do
But it's clear to him that god wants him to do it.
And that's the level of Chaya, the soul above Soul that comes down on him, and on you, in moments of clarity,
Of Pure Life, where there are no questions, no identities, where the role you once played doesn't matter,
I've got to do what my god says is right

Awesome, right? Gevalt. A lovely tietch that ignores the what-the-fuck question of WHAT PINCHAS DID (I.E. MURDER TWO PEOPLE,) and worse, HOW GOD SUPPORTS WHAT HE DID, by ending the plague that hit the people, and the mystery of what was Our God's problem with the whole situation.

Some people got really offended that I asked the question, probably because i kept accusing them of avoiding it. What do you mean, what Cozbi and Zimri did was wrong and disgusting!

More disgusting than killing people?

Baal Peor is disgusting, their whole god and service! Shitting and fucking in front of a giant phallus, that's gross!

Grosser than spilling lots of sheep and cow blood on an altar three times a day? I mean, what was G-d so bothered about?

Why couldn't he just come before the Midianites and reveal himself and say Come! Leave thy old service behind and join My People as we ascend to a new way of serving in Our Land? Why this passive/aggressive bullshit with a mysterious plague, followed by support of what's basically called in Islam an honor killing? What's Jah's priority here?

The only answer that I heard in my head that makes any sense so far, and please feel free to send me better ones, is that Our God is Our God, responding to Our Will, indulging Our Tastes, needs, and disgusts, maybe on a more sublime and unconcious level than we as a community might realize, but only in a voice that we recognize.

When everybody feels right about something,
there is no kitrug, no accusing force to deny it,
and so everyone loves the song of the poor and oppressed,
no one would say he has no right to sing it

And when everyone feels wrong about something
even those doing it, benfiting from it, indulging it, justifying it
might know that it's wrong,
and so R Nachman tells us that when rich people don't appreciate the good that they have, they become hateful even in their own eyes
(sefer hamidos)

And when we're not sure
if the good we have
is ok or not
we might not know what to do
and the more we deny that confusion
the more we resist crying out to G-D for understanding,
or arguing to make our point,
then we might just get sick or something.

The gemara brings down (somewhere)
that if Zimri had defended himself
he would have been justified al pi halacha

It's not G-d independent of Am Yisrael that wants Eretz Yisrael to be holy and special to Us.
It's us, that feels guilty over the other things we are drawn towards.

The son of a rabbi friend of mine, frum and as devoted to am yisrael as anyone i know was saying alot this gathering, for the first time that I can remember

"I don't believe in a God that punishes,
We punish ourselves, we punish Ourselves."

We get ourselves sick when we think we've done wrong but
don't want to deal with it
or talk about it.

But when we're in a place
where everything we were so guilty about
is totally cool, and what are you talking about, that's fine
It can be very confusing
Were we right before
or are they right now?

This the messianic confusion
how much to trust the old fears, how much dare I tell myself, or anyone
"things are different now."

One solution is to use the mind to prove how it's different
and you might be able to convince yourself and others
but that might not have anything to do with truth.
and it might not matter.

One solution is just not to care
"stop the train, i'm leaving
And it won't be too long, whether i'm right or wrong."
But how often do you care about something so much
that you don't care whether it kills you or not?

Zimri is no less a Kanoi than Pinchas
dying in the hope of bringing together the One god of two nations.
Did he have any idea that his life was in danger?
After Korach, how could he not?

Everyone knows
the Arizal brings down
that Zimri and Kosbi
were the same souls as Dena and Shchem
And for that matter R' Akiva and Mrs Turnus Rufus
trying forever to come together from across worlds
Something Our God seems to have been resisting
I wonder why?

Maybe because the end of Yisrael
is the end of His story
and anything that threatens our collective narrative
he will fight
as long as we do.

lord accept my prayers like the finest head spice

2006-07-13T03:58:00.000+03:00

finally a little bit back from rainbow-- a fuller report is forthcoming, so we're just going to tide the children over with this quick little bit, sent over by R Shmuel Munkis, care of Reverend Mordechai Avraham, a.k.a. mincha, may this piece merit him a healing for all his troubles.

Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev and R Shneur Zalman of Liadi
despite being good friends
had very different approaches to prayer,
particularly the morning prayers, different ways of preparing and relating to their prayers,

So,
Shmuel Munkis,
one of R Shneur Zalman's closest disciples
came to R Shneur Zalman one morning, as he was finishing his prayers,

Said early, specifically on time, with all the ritual observances specifically followed,

and asked his master
What's wrong with you?
Why do you do all these things, so early, so careful
when Levi Yitzchak across town hasn't even had his morning coffee yet?

R Shneur Zalman responded,
if only I was on the level of Levi Yitzchak!
He's like the friend of the king
who can open the doors of heaven at anytime
while a litvak like me has to get to the gates at the hours when they're open to just anybody.

R Shmuel took it in,
and then went across town to R Levi Yitzchak
who, true to form, was just finishing his morning coffee
(it was like noon)
and was about to prepare for his prayers with a fat bowl of his favorite Turkish Tobbacco.

R Shmuel comes in and asks
Levitzchak !
What do you need to smoke a pipe to daven for
when R Shneur Zalman across town is already finished davening,
needing nothing but his G-d to prepare him for prayer?

If only I was on the level of R Shneur Zalman!
Levi Yitzchak smiled and exclaimed
What he can do off the top of the morning
I need some pipe weed and coffee just to come close to starting!

J-town context.

2006-05-25T18:09:00.000+03:00

Uh... just to offer some context for the last few posts. I was wondering about what's possible and what's not possible in Jerusalem, Yerushalayim, and what's possible for our peoples. So, in a state of meditative sensitivity, I went to ask some questions of the spirits.

There is such a thing as too much, right? There's such a thing as not enough, or the fear of too much being more damaging and inhibiting of good than too much itself, and when you get to the place of solid ivory, don't say it's too much, or you'll be lost, swept away in the terror... and there's times when the army you're up against really is unbeatable, and you might just have to run for your life.

So too with culture, I am often amazed at what has been possible to sustain as a culture, everything from positive restaurants to open honest relationships, how could it be that anything this good has been allowed by those maybe threatened by it to allow it to go on? and the only answer can be is that they are less threatened by the freedom than by what might happen in response to the repression.

Terrence Mckenna Z"l was once asked, after a long speech detailing the virtues and varieties of psychedelic exploration, and the horrors and follies of the prohibition movements against them , why aren't you in jail? How could it be that you're allowed to study these things and live free?

I've wondered these things myself, he answered, and i've come up with two serious possibilities:
You'll notice, I use big words. They may not consider me a threat for this reason.
Or maybe,
they're curious
about what i'm finding

Maybe, as much as they're afraid of the psychdelic condition weakening their controls over the populace, they're thinking to themselves, hm. We really don't have any ideas how these things work, and maybe, seeing as there's this whole problem in the world, and all these weird trippers claiming that these substances might be in strumental in working out the problem, maybe we should leave some of these people alone to work some information out of these substances. Worst comes to worst they'll just destroy themselves, and either way, we'll get some useful information out of them.

Jerusalem is either controlled by really good people who just let really bad things go on, or really bad people who just let good things go on. Or said another way, is it a bad religion layed on good people, or a good religion layed on bad people?
Which one should we try to fix when?

It's a mystery to me, what's possible to do in Jerusalem. I was tripping the other day, pondering the question of what does it take to make good things happen here. There's an astounding amount of secular culture here, which is not generally repressed or harangued outside of certain neighborhoods. This is because jews rights to secular culture is strongly defended by the authorities in the state of Israel, one of the main cultural priorities of the zionist enterprise, and probably what some religious people resent most about the state.

But maybe not. Maybe it has more to do with the ruthless control.

Because the state is willing to kill whoever endangers it, and is not ashamed of it. They don't generally assasinate people they don't perceive as threats, but they do when they do. Or, if not kill, arrest, hire, or otherwise neutralize. One could argue that said attitude is the hallmark of all effective authorities, and that's pretty terrible and sad.

And so, it's a mystery to me, how much we as a subculture, as a people, can get away with here.

In the early eighties, there was the beginning of an alternative religious subculture forming in Jerusalem. Really cool, apparently, with music and torah of the highest variety happening constantly, it was a time of great hope for neo-chassidic freakelach. R Shlomo Carlebach was at the hight of his well connectedness, his religious outsider status and non-judgemental zionism allowed him all kinds of connections within the state and military establishment to get taken to secret army bases and do inspiring concerts for soldiers or in prisons, and to pull off other subtle cultural coups, his music soon being semi-official Israeli-religious anthems. The yeshiva world had largely, at least officially, shunned him, but some kind of grace had been earned for him in the eyes of the state, a powerful tool for the zionist inspiration.

And in kikar tzion, zion square, a center of super-cool stuff was happening, with two of the greatest Torah thinkers of the generation at it's helm. They'd have secret New Years parties, and all kind of other exctatic parties and thought interactions going on. I really have no idea how cool it was. The kids felt confident,safe, and excited for a cooler future, where the relgion would be understood clearer and higher, where the boundaries would be relaxed and the true priority of love your neighbor realized.

And that was shut down, rather forcefully. One of the main guys running it, Dovid Hertzberg z"l, was arrested for grass, and promptly and harshly convicted, and sent to prison for three years, where, according to friends, he was poisoned with the cancer that would later take his life.

Now. There's a lot of stuff going on in this town, in this country, with a certain amount of protectzia backing it up. Halacha teaches us about law in general: it always depends on accusations. This is why Jews (except for the hated betrayers and informers) were so careful about not reporting information to the governement under any circumstances traditionally, keeping all the buisness secret, and often being encharged by the local government to police ourselves, and have our own courts and sentencing.

Of course, alot of that goes into the mystery of the King who will not make a law that will not be kept, lest it be proven that he's not really a king. Things that once theatened people might not after some social trigger makes it ok. An example includes the spiritualization of secular society. One of the dangerous things going on in that place in Jerusalem was the softening of that line between religious and secular, a line that was crucial for many different Israeli's self identification. A secular person is not relgious, and a holy person must not go to unholy places, right? It's easier now, thanks to Sheva and Shivi and Shlomo and Madonna and the whole world learning what it has, maybe. But a center where secular people are encouraged to pray in the language of the hated enemy dumb religious, and where the religious people are so open to all the things that they're not supposed to open to, dammit, might really freak some people out.

So, I wonder, how safe is it to live in Jerusalem? And I don't mean in terms of explody safe, I mean policeman safe. Is it possible/worthwhile to try to build or at least make a space for a positive, self sustainable, open and intelligeable culture, one potentially less transitional than the one currently doing it's thing there? Who should I be wary of?

We had a cool thing happen the other night. David K. let us throw a party on his roof for Jerusalem day at the last minute. This party started late, musicos jamming till a little after midnight when I finally got my turntables up and running.
And sure enough, a half hour after I start spinning, the neighbor comes and asks us to turn it down.

So David, looking around and approving of the scene we're creating, makes a command decision: No, i'm afraid we can't do that. This is too special.

So the neighbor calls the cops. And that's usually how the party ends.

But not tonight. It was Jerusalem day, so the cops wouldn't come. We blasted the music till 4:20 in the morning, when the transformer blew. We sang new songs and old ones, and danced like psychedelic chimps. The police would not come to stop us, because the State was on our side.

Isn't that weird? And by weird, I mean, "the way things should be."

Jerusalem, as I understand it messianically, should be a sacred party city; that's what a temple is for. There should be quiet meditative places, and, more centrally, eternal fires burning in bodies of undying youths, jumping for the stars. These things are what Jerusalem is for, the only way to justify the bad things we do to keep it.

All cities are only justified by their parties, otherwise, what would they be worth?

But the police and the State are not always on our side,a nd this is the mystery to me a little: How much can we keep them on our side without becoming evil, in service to the thugs that let me walk down the street without stealing my lunch money because i'm "cool." It's good to have the people around you watching your back, if you want to feel safe while opening up and want to maybe lower your guard and look at the stars for a minute. How much can you trust the bad people who like what you're doing? How much can you let them be there for you, or suspend judgement about what they do?

To what is the matter likened? imagine someone has their father killed by gangsters. Can he then join the gang, in an attempt to be strong where his father was weak, in an attempt to secure safety, either idealistically to make a more righteous gangland, or, y'know, just to survive. Is it wrong to survive at the expence of righteous pride, or loyalty to a memory?

Look up the story of Yaakov Dehaan, and wonder why Neturei Carta resents the state so much. It might have to do with more than just dogma. Check out this excerpt from Wikipedia:

His assassination by the Haganah on July 1, 1924, allegedly
for his political stance
has been well researched
and reported in the book De Haan: The first political assassination in Palestine written by Shlomo Nakdimon and Shaul Mayzlish
(Hebrew edition. Modan Press, Tel Aviv, 1985).

Nakdimon and Mayzlish conducted and in-depth investigation and their findings caused an upsurge of interest in the mysterious death of de Haan in Israel following their book's publication in 1985. They were able to trace the assassin, then living in Hong Kong as a business man, Avraham Tehomi. Tehomi was interviewed for Israeli TV by Nakdimon and openly stated:

"I have done
what the Haganah decided
had to be done.

And nothing was done without the order of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi
(who later became the second president of Israel 1952-1963)

...I have no regrets
because he (de Haan) wanted to destroy our whole idea of Zionism."
(emphasis mine)"

The secular Zionist establishment would not allow the established Haredi community in Israel to be represented in the powerful Jewish Agency in the 1920's.

In response, the Haredim founded an Agudat Israel branch in Jerusalem to represent their interests during the British Mandate of Palestine. The leader of the Haredi Jews in Palestine at the time, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld chose de Haan to organize and represent the Haredi position on a diplomatic level equal to that of the secular Zionists. When Lord Northcliffe, a leading British publisher, was about to visit the Middle East, de Haan went to Alexandria in Egypt to present the case of Palestine's Orthodox Jews to him, before he reached Palestine:

He spoke about the tyranny of the official Zionist movement. The journalists of the Northcliffe party gleefully reported all that back home. As a result of this contact, De Haan was appointed correspondent for the Daily Express, a one-penny paper that made much of everyday scandals. Already in Dutch circles he was the reputed volksverrader, traitor of his own people, and now his views spread throughout Great Britain and its Global Empire. Although his messages were short and few compared to his articles in the Handelsblad (the news from the Middle East in the Daily Express was more concerned with the mysteries of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt than with the intricate Palestine politics) the Zionist authorities both in Palestine and London became very worried. There was a great potential danger from these critical reports from a Jew who actually lived and worked right on this hot spot.

De Haan also opened negotiations with the Hashemite leader Hussein bin Ali for the recognition of a Jewish state and the establishment of an official Palestinian state in Jordan within a federation. These bold moves threatened and alarmed the secular Zionist leadership and were factors contributing to the decision to eliminate him from the scene.

Because they have made our drugs illegal, because they fear our freedoms, our insensitivty to the popular terror, or something, they will be willing and able to take any of us down whenever they want, and make our friedns and families apologize for the trouble, chas v' Shalom. They have After Dovid was arrested, most of the community became more zionistic, not less. The trial as i've heard, was a farce, with reliable, non-exaggerative people using the word "crucifixion" to describe it.

And ever afterwards, he wouldn't talk snap about how bad the state was, at least not to me. There was alot he wouldn't say, and part of it was certainly a religious/spiritual thing: One doesn't put accusation against Israel, against another Jew. However our kings want to kill us, we're still so committed to the community and it's life, with no anger, only tears for the poor lost brothers, so hurt they would treat us this way.

Now, as i mentioned, I was tripping very hard the other day, and I was wondering about what I can ever hope to do in Jerusalem as far as scale and depth, exstacy (not that kind! stam...) and consistancy... What can I create that won't be burned down, and is there any of way of fixing my personal conduct in such a way that the good i'm hoping to protect won't be endangered. Because i'd happily never own grass again if it meant I could build something with real messianic cultural potential. How much will I have to sacrifice, and how much am I better off, stronger and safer, not being afraid.

An ok Torah tells you don't bother trying to do what you want, because X, Y, Z. A better Torah tells you: unless you have A, B, C, in which case want you want is possible. A progressively better Torah helps you get away with being progressively better.

Angels and seraphim are policemen, and what they let us get away with depends on what looks safe to them, and sometimes, what they're afraid to stand up against, for whatever reason. An effective mafia is one that the police are afraid to trouble. In Northern Humbolt County, local police would either be bribed to defend the wealthier ganja farmers, or scared of booby traps if they came in too close. I've heard stories of fedral helicopters being shot down by dope farmers for flying over their land.

Technically, the helicopter were violating the law by flying over, at least at the time. That's how the farmer got away with it, assuming he wasn't hunted down quietly later by federal agents. Otherwise he'd have the whole army on his ass, and he probably didn't have had the armament to face them, the resources to face down the biggest, best armed army in the world.
Don't go into a fight that you can't win, unless you're really gonna get something out of dying.

check this out: from the interview, on Israeli radio, with Dehaan's assasins. They were able to publicly discuss, with pride, their murder of a non-violent person, on the radio in the early seventies. listen:

In November 1970 (and eventually rebroadcast November 21, 1971), a program on Israel radio "zarkor" broadcast a program, that had Yehuda Slutski, editor of Kitsur Toldoth ha-Haganah, Avraham Tehomi, and police officer [David Tidhar] discussing their foreknowledge and role in the assassination. Slutski wrote:

"... [T]he old yishuv refused to surrender and submit to secular domination... when they broke away and formed an independent community... no one disturbed them. Were it not for De Haan, they would have organized their small community devoid of any communal or political significance. De Haan used his connections to move the struggle into the realm of international politics. He aspired to establish a political organization to rival the Zionist movement, which was still then in its infancy and not yet fully established-- this was the danger of de Haan... Yosef Hecht, commander of the Haganah received instructions to eliminate the traitor. He relayed orders to Zechariah Urieli, Haganah commander of Jerusalem, .....I do not want to enter into details, it is extremely unpleasant, but this was an order--- they could not allow him to remain."

Later in the broadcast police officer David Tidhar said: "I regret I was not chosen to liquidate him, my job was to protect those who did..." I moved into the area and waited for the shots... Naturally I appeared on the scene immediately. Since I knew in which direction the gunman had to escape... I directed the police to pursue them [ in the opposite direction]..."

Thank g-d, one of the great benefits of living in a state with no constitution and relatively infinite police powers, is that they will ignore you as easily as persecute you if you find grace in their eyes, be it through surrender or whatever else Officer Gavriel likes. There's much temptation to just do my thing as quietly as possible, the advice every older stoner not in prison gives me. Except the really angry ones.

There's such a taiva to judge the weak and judge the strong, to hate either one for how they got to where they are, and what their successes say about you. To pick a side a defend it against the other, to love my gang and hate our enemies, as if, as if , as if our enemies existed.

God, please give us wisdom to be righteous, to judge righteously and enact justice without endangering ourselves or anyone really. give us grace in the eyes of our enemies, that they should defend us rather than oppress us. And courage to love and party.

And for heaven's sake, don't let anybody stop us from Living.

over there

2006-05-23T19:29:00.000+03:00

(this one was written together with the previous three, during a strong psychedelic episode. context will be established soon.
I just wasn't ready to send this one out yet.)

One good thing about all our laws, they keep our daughters our sisters safe, very deeply heard inside very deeply heard and revolted against, not by me, mind you, i'm into tznious it's a good law.

Why incite? Only when it's safe, do we get stupid, only when we're strong do we get stupid only when we're high

do we stop listening to how we're being recieved
over there

2006-05-23T19:13:00.000+03:00

I n Idia, I hear, the police men moniter culture, and protect the traditional from the criminal. That's the rumor, who really knows how ploice men work, unless we ask the ones in our heads how they do it and in a moment of weakness they share all their secrets.

IT's some how precious the unsafe, the familiar my sister my brother trigger

I hear that in india they protect the traditional from the criminal dihonest. that's what I heaer. But I have to trust SOOOOmebody, right? everybody so deply down, i trust the divine voice in them, and you know, besides that, all my judgements center on the familiar So speak in a language that the people you're afraids of speak, and then maybe you'lll get the bread distributeds better.

2006-05-23T19:06:00.000+03:00

Some thin happened happens in jerusalem some times all the time, where people get together for holidays, and it's safe, because the whole state is protecting you and the invaders don't exist hahahahahahahhaaa no they do, but it's really from party to party isn't it? who welcome in the holikday who has to be circumsisedf before they eat this. it's awesdsssssooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmemmme

You're all wwelcome is what everyone says wrong. You're all welcome to sing and and dance with us in jerusalem is the only thing we're defending, right? what is this whole place for if not the great party that 's safe for all to attend, and no one is disinvite because just for tonight there's enough food for everybody in the whole world if we do it right
right rigthtrightrightirifght? You're all welcome is how we ruin all our pareties and lose all our treasuress, not communicatting to the other how precipous how precious what we have that you're taking from usa is and if you appreciate it, then,

2006-05-23T18:57:00.000+03:00

The main problem, and will someone please translate this back, is only when we don 't feel safe around each other, being too much, taking too much of the food, knawing away at the birthright, there are those that are afraid, just like me, of us and ourculture and tthat it dare not include even the holy even the holy even the holy

Please feel safe, in away even when you're not just for the sake of being there with the other? they may desrve it even if they don't they may neeeed

hey maan what's going on tommorwo just the same party we''ve been waging since the dreumms first got skinned and were fighting to die on the dance floor if impossible

that's not what I mean

are you ready to die
NO , we said all together, oh god no, and our mother holds us our eyhes open and asks agiain are you ready to be

an we come out eh womb, dancingright?

Lord help us from trouble Who are your police mane and what languages do they speak, shall we fear them lord?

2006-05-23T18:06:00.000+03:00

Is there anyone out there in the world that can answer me a subtle little question?

What did Dovid really get in trouble for? because it can't just be the drugs, could it? could that be it? they had to be afrid of something else. no? uh oh.

And who's really the will behind this countruy anyway?
hahahahaha

By this country, I mean Israel.
What'[s our theology really about, huh?

The nicest thing I was ever told was that it's all for the sake of tthe dancing, the holy dancing, allcities

alll cittiiees
depend on dancing to justify them
if not frorr the dancing, what good would all the unity be worth, if not for the motion?

legalize marijuana, that what they say, hey.

2006-04-30T04:26:00.000+03:00

hey, what's up true believers? guess what's goin on this weekend?

It's a big conflict for me this year, and, like other halacha vs. morality questions, it's more problematic in Israel.

You see kids, dope smoking is forbidden on the sabbath, except to save your life, of course. The World Cannabis March, a.k.a. The Million Marijuana March is the first saturday in May, and for a jew of the orthodox persuasion who smokes marijuana and cares for it's legalization, it might feel important to go to the cannabis march for the sake of solidarity with the cause of liberating God's creations from the yoke of heavyness and trauma. And so, in high school, I would dutifully walk over the Williamsburg bridge every first shabbos in May, to march in New York's Million Marijuana March, with my black hat and jacket, tie-clasp key strapped firmly to mine tie.

I later years, i'd get involved with the organization that put the march on, Cures Not Wars, certainly one of the most appreciated resources of my youth. www.cures-not-wars.org has the local info for your local march, in whatever country or province you happen to dwell.

There's three in Israel this year, isn't that something? Tel aviv, Jerusalem and Eilat, oh my! I have no real involvement in the Jerusalem one, in Gan Sacher, and I wonder if I should even go, because it means something else to have an event here on Saturday, holy Saturday than it would in universal ol' America.

How much do I believe in Shabbos? So much, right? More than like anything, isn't that odd? How much am I to respect my own beliefs, how much to challenge them to duels to the death. I know Shabbos is deeper than the things we do to preserve it, and I also know that once those things are devalued, the priority flood gates rush open. If i'm not forced somehow to not work on Shabbos, I have no excuse not to work on shabbos.

Weed, reefer, pot, marijuana, lets say, as much as I love, I don't believe in the redemptive power of as much. I have not come to a theology where god rewards me for smoking grass, and appreciates the sacrifices I make in order to be able to nessesarily. I don't believe that cannabis consumption is inherently redemptive, a position I might have wanted to take at points in my youth.

And there is a school of thought like that in the psychedelic community, that the High is inhernetly divine, and You are Encharged to go to that place at all costs. Chayuv Inish libisumai, only that one day, is what we agreed.

"we", ha haha ha ha!

I love my loopholes, and used to dig getting high on shabbos from the shotties that gentiles would blow in my mouth upon being told of my situation.

"Hey. excuse me sir? Happy cannabis liberation day! I couldn't help but notice the phat blunt you've got there, and i'll tell you... I'm a religious jew, and cannot smoke on the Sabbath, saturday, nor can I even ask you for a hit or anything... But if you want to blow a shottie in my face, I wouldn't have to turn away."

What kind of stoner would refuse the chance to share in that? There are halachic issues with maris ayin, evil eye from people seeing him do this to me and somehow being led to think that he was actually doing it for me, as opposed to just, you know, blowing his own smoke where ever he wanted, but that might be secondary to the kiddush hashem of religious people turning out to be "cool" and supporting the movement.

It might still be a halachic problem, I don't do it very often, just when gentiles want to get me high for their own sake, do I have to stop them? It's more of a problem in public, I guess.

In Jerusalem, it's so loaded. One can only benfit from stuff done on Shabbos by gentiles, or those not chayuv in Shabbos... but in J-town, everybody's probably Jewish, so... supporting the movement is supporting Sabbath violation maybe.

Now... though I've been flirting with and talking about all sorts off anti-nomian values and ideas, i'm still inside, functionally orthoprax, and even though I might see the liberated future, I don't live there most of the time. To the degree that I will go outside of the boundary of the law, endangering perhaps my immortal soul, ha ha, as if, I have not unless it seemed really worth it. This is a general practical rule I tend to hold by, if you're going to risk your life, only do it for things worth dying for. Like, if i'm going to break a rule, it should be only if it's holier than if I had kept it, like the Yom Kippur Feast at the finishing of the Holy Temple construction, something on that level. I feel like g-d respects that more than just violation from sloth or convenience. It's really, really wrong to break shabbos for money, because what does that say about money? But to break Shabbos for love...?

I've known people who related to marijuana as a protective amulet, that as long as they had some on them, they were safe from harm. There are Rastafarian sects, like the bobo if I'm not mistaken, where death is seen as a symptom of sin or failure, and marijuana as a protection against that. It would be cool if that was how it works...

I was talking to a friend tonight about a controversial wedding we'd been to earlier that week. The teachers of the school that the bridegroom was learning at wouldn't go to the wedding ceremony itself, because of theological issues with how the wedding was done (they used the invocation "like the law of moses and israel" but all the blessings were done by a woman, and the wife-purchase thing was left out too.) One of the teachers, however, came for the dancing afterwards, and spoke publicly before the school to clarify and open up discussion about why he didn't go, and why he supports the love happening anyway. While he couldn't be a part of what was happening, partially because of a sense of being pressured into taking a stand to support the way it was done, partially because of his responsibility as head of the School, but how that didn't mean he thought they were wrong in doing it the way that they did it. Really, he supports them, their love and their decisions... he just can't be a part of the ritual.

Is that hypocritical? To say I believe that something is good, but can't actually be involved in it for reasons of the holy? maybe. But i'm doing that too. Jerusalem in Gan Sacher, this saturday at 4. Tel aviv, Eilat, i don't have the details here, but google aleh yarok or check out the affor linked www.cures-not-wars.org and they should have everything you need to know.

do what thou wilt, right? ha
ha
ha

lineage pt 4: listen to the wind

2006-04-25T00:13:00.000+03:00

So the Rabbi huffs and puffs, declares his desire to hit me, and how much he can't believe the uninhibited gall I have in telling him these things. I calmly insist that i'm still struggling with it all, and have to be honest about what questions and truths reveal themselves to me.

And then I ask: "What did I say or ask that was so objectionable?" I thought I was on potentially secure theological ground! The talmud disparages getting benifit from Torah, paying people to learn or teach it. Only a certain kind of gaonic loophole (Is it really only as old as the gaonim? anyone is welcome to correct me on this one.) allows a community to do something as strange and ridiculous as "hire" a "rabbi"! Which is probably alot of what the Rabbi was reacting to, the implication that the way he makes his money inhibits Torah education instead of encourages it.

Which might be the crucial unspoken issue. No one wants to hear that the way they're living is bad, unless they're looking for a way out of it themselves, which any of us living as religious people in this liberated epoch must not. Right?

"What am I saying that's making you so angry?"

You're saying that Charedim, religious people are wicked, that they don't do any good for anyone but themselves... Do you have any idea how much Chesed (kindness0 is being done secretly by frum people throughout the world?

(It was odd to me that that was what he heard from everything I was saying, leading me to imagine that his defences put a familiar, non-threatening criticism of the religious world in the place of a shtarker, stronger one.)

"Rabbi, that's not what i'm saying at all! Of course Yidden do so much chesed...
How else would the way we live be justified?"

"But tell me, do you remember what rashi says, for why a Chasida isn't kosher?"

To my surprise, he said, What are you talking about. I thought everybody knew this one? But I guess we only remember so much at a time.

"In the chumash, they're listing the kosher birds and the treyfe ones, right? R Yehoshua ben levi says, what's the pattern, what makes a bird kosher?

good birds are kosher
mean ones are treyfe.

Then what about the chasida? Her name means kindness! Why isn't she kosher?

And R Yehoshua ben Levi answers:

Why isn't the chasida kosher?

Because it only does good for it's own."

Which really pissed the Rabbi off. But it's a central problem, you know, we don't really have a universalist religion exactly. It's kept us from prostyltizing, but also from humanising the enemy sometimes, something I suppose event he most enlightened tribal cultures don't do.

It's great that all the shuls are so supportive of Darfur, and it's also a little convenient for us... Not too much internal changes involved in the censuring of a foriegn, Islamic government. Not too much looking at ourselves and where our wealth is coming from and such.

I heard Josh Lauffer quote Shlomo one time, why did the holocaust happen? Oh

Why
did
the holocaust
happen?

Because the yidden didn't know how to listen to the wind.

If they had listened
they would have known exactly what our goyish brothers are asking for.

Because there is a counter tradition to the sacred lie, and has been the whole time.

It's not Torah from the people in charge of Torah, the "Gedolim" in the official sense. It's Torah from the rumblings of poor scholars, working in fields and streets, desperate for her majesty to show her face and wash the lies away.

More on that soon.

lineage part 3: Won't Know

2006-04-24T20:55:00.000+03:00

Jerusalem confuses me with her inconsistant mystical peak experiences. It's NICE to be able to speak words that feel like they matter, like they inspire/clarify/bridge...
The most shameful feeling in the world is shallow attempts at depth and positivity. The feeling of lying for the sake of fuff and appearance... and we do it very often, because who wants to ruin the show for everyone? who wants to look like just they just don't get it.

I love the rebbes, I might be spoiled by their Torah, and i will not say that I don't care, that it's worth it... have I been saved to come to another, better, truer perspective? I have not been willing to identify with many other paths as much as I have here, and perhaps I'm lying to say that I want to or could leave Jerusalem for long. for long.

But My Family, What do I owe them? Nothing. Love. Communication. What gates wish to be opened there? What better God am I serving in the meantime?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

So, in an attempt to talk with the Rabbi about ideas and maybe see where we agree and where there's difference in understanding, in an attempt to hear something new and challenge my old understandings, in the hope of hearing something new from someone old, I ask about Kotsk.

R Hutner was really into kotsk apparently, as well as the Vilna Gaon and the Maharal.
I mention the Kotsker to the Rabbi, and he mentions the Maharal. I pause in the hopes that he'll just expound from there, but no dice. So I go on asking things.

"Why was R Hutner so into these people in particular? What was it in their torah that he noticed, or was connected to?"

What do you mean? The Rabbi asked.

"Well... Kotsk is a very different kind of torah, with maybe very different priorities..."

The rabbi tried very hard to listen to what I was saying, an anguished look of concern on his face for what terrible thing I might say at any given time.

He was very supportive of me when I was younger, and had trouble in school, at least as ar as encouraging my expression of the difficulty. I once wrote I really scathing piece about my yeshiva in seventh grade, I forget to who it was adressed, I think it was for school, but it was reacted to very poorly by whichever teacher or administrator recieved it. The Rabbi, on the other hand, applauded me for it, saying it was important and showed a real love for Torah and a demand for it to be taken seriously.

I really have no way of knowing if he ever did anything from his position of power in the Day School system to do anything about it, either one way or the other. There could be any number of favors he's done for me and/or my father, from helping me get into one school to keeping me from being expelled for another. I wonder...

He suddenly got very open, something for which I eternally give him credit. Please note that none of what I'm describing happened at all the way i'm remembering it, let alone the way i'm describing it. This part of the conversation is very dreamlike to me, and i'll list the three things that may have been said. Either:

Well, you know, what's R Hutner looking for? What's his torah about that he's not satisfied with just Rashi and Poskim?

Or

Why do you think he was into the Torah that he was?

something like that. The next thing I remember is me talking about the mystery of lineage, and the new Torah being revealed. The frustrations with the limits of the Torah in "our time" and the mystery of Moshiach Torah, how much are we allowed to live it?

Which, come to think of it, has been the central question that i've been wrestling with since Dovid Hertzberg passed on.

What are you talking about, Moshiach Torah? Everyone knows there's only one Torah, what Moshe gave, what was passed down through the Chachamim throughout all generations, that's all the Torah we have!

"Well... in some communities, they seem to be wanting to learn from the students more than from the Rebbes... Like Kotsk, like Pshiske--"

But in all those places, they were learning from a Rebbe! The KOTSKER REBBE, THE PSHISKER REBBE-- They all had their Torah, coming FROM a REBBE, TO a DISCIPLE!

"What about the Baal Shem Tov?"

He learned from Achiya Hashiloni!

(Achiya Hashiloni was a biblical figure in the times of Rehoboam and Jeroboam. He appeared to the Baal Shem Tov as a spirit guide, revealing unto him... all manner of things, including What kind of shabbos G-d likes )

I shrugged, as if to say "well?" He bristled and huffed.

"Well, sure, they had schools, but they were trying there to find a better way, to get Torah more directly from G-d. Didn't R Pinchas of Koretz say, after the Baal Shem tov died, when they asked him to be the rebbe, didn't he say: Why can't we all just be friends? Isn't that what the Kotsker was so angry about? That people were depending on him for Torah, instead of just listening to what was being revealed by G-d?"

the only teachers I ever had who really were on the level were the ones who wanted not just to give something over as much as dig something out together... The ones desperate to hear what G-d is trying to tell us."

"I'm concerned... what if we've been using Torah, the way we've been learning it to avoid what G-d is trying to tell us?"

(There is a well established theological reasoning, involving the revelation on Sinai, and Chaim Vital's introduction to the pri etz chaim, arguing this point. It's probably one of the central teachings in Berg's Ashlagian Kabbalah, the repression of the true Torah through the revealed revealed Torah, by the way. But i never got to tell the Rabbi about that)

What are you getting at!? He demanded, enough with side points and nonsense, just come out with it, what are you trying to say!

The question surprised me, I thought I was being pretty straight forward. What does he hear?

Yoseph, I don't understand what you're trying to say. In fact, I don't understand how you even think. I don't understand what you're getting at at all. What are you asking?!

"I think maybe you understand all too well what i'm saying. There's some crucial problem with how Am Yisrael is relating to Torah and Mitzvos that is keeping us, maybe, from what Hashem wants us to do, wants us to know."

He took this to be an attack on orthodox Haredi Jewry, a dismissal of all their good works and an assault on their charachter. He berated me for not knowing anything about real judaism, for talking about communities and a lifestyle that i've never seen or had access to. Which seemed odd to me, because, y'know, he was responsible for all my primary Jewish education, summer camps and kollels included.

I was struck by the need for the assumption of my ignorance in order to devalue my message, instead of engaging me. I was reminded later, as a diplomat, and fundraiser, the Rabbi is master of conflict resolution and peaceable, non-confrontational ways of making peace between people.

And so, once again, he opened up.

Yoseph, you have No Right to have an opinion in Torah, No way of understanding any of what you're trying to talk about at all. You have to go back and Learn Chumish and Rashi, and A daf Gemuhruh, learn how to read a Daff Gemuhruh like a memnch, and then maybe after years, you can start to learn some Kabbalah, after you've learned first what it all means. You know who you think you are? Jesus Christ!

(Which is the worst thing a jew can be accused of being, with the possible exception of Hitler, arguably a figure with a much less threatening theology, at least as far as understanding.

Yehoshua Witt once, after the beit Simcha shul in nachlaot was vandalized by some pious folks with the words "Yeshu!" on the door, said to one of his sons: Anyone they want to hate, they call Yeshu.

Once you're Jesus, jews can't hear what you're saying anymore, because, by definition, he's saying that judaism and the Law don't matter anymore, at least not the way we thought they did. "I am here not to revoke the law, but to complete it"
That is, when the Christ speaks to you, you understand in your heart what the Law was trying to teach your mind, and all the layers of protection and insurance become revealed as irrelelvant, unnessesary. The shell is discarded as the fruit becomes ripe, overripe.

What if we're the shell, pasted up and tied over the living fruit, long since ripened, soured, fermentd? Or salted, left to sit forever?

More on the mystery of the Messiah to come
Plus, the secret history of mine lineage, because I don't think this shit up on my own. I would never dare.

2006-04-05T20:10:00.000+03:00

hey. I've been wondering for a while why no comments were showing up. Then I checked the moderate comments box today, and wow! Y'all may wanna scroll down the page, some of these are really insightful, interesting, and direct you back to some charming people and their blogs. thanks for writing, and i'm bound to adress a bunch of these points that people brought up soon. You guys rock!

Lineage part 2: Is he cool?

2006-04-02T03:40:00.000+03:00

Hassidic reggae has been going on for a while in some communities.

When the chevra at Jerusalem camp first got turned on to the Nyabingi tradition at the National Rainbow Gatherings in the early '00es (aughty aughts?) we really felt touched and annointed as part of another ancient tradition returning to it's source within us, and it's a powerful reminder: Whatever lineage you're in as far as one thing, it isn't the only one, and as a higher and closer connection to God/Truth manifests itself, it must be accepted the moment is understood.

It's a big problem, the degree to which fear prevents learning, fear that the lesson will be too much and wrong, but be believed anyway, but something precious and irrevetrievable will be lost in the transit. How do we make people feel comfortable understanding us?

Law is for the sake of protection against death, be it organizational death or personal. All lineage is about keeping something alive, through (secret) laws and regulations. The small and tribal was embarrasing sometimes when it became clear, our Law is holding us back from the World, and becomes precious when Their Law fails to include us. This is why and how reggae music has penetrated the mass culture, creating an almost universal subculture. Based, somehow, on the ancientest of tribal party traditions with the bible language, as trustworthy and enfaithed as the word of G-d itself in so much of the worlds collective unconcious mentality.

My acid test for how do I know if a Yeshiva is real, if their devotion is really the truth of G-d and his revelation to Us when I first came to Israel is how do they relate to Marijuana. So Much of and and why we trust rastafarian priorities as opposed to spooky Christian ones (as if they were different at all on paper) is that the weed smoking proves that they're cool. Not accepting the Big False Law, that claims to save us from death but really only demands death; whether someone, even without smoking, approves of Mans Right to Grasses determines to many of us that they value freedom over security, just enough to not actually endanger, but enough to think and see what does not really threaten us from nature.

Because much of nature really is threatening, or was before we got it under control, as if. G-d gave us all the seed bearing herbs, but the truth is, we never could trust The Other in nature. We are in danger of being eaten, and as long as we're not ok with that, as long as we're running fucking and/or fighting, we have hope of being forever, as if we didn't already.

Why do religious hippies ever feel justified eating meat? In Judaism, we have a tradition that the cow is so happy to be subsumed in nourishing a higher lifeform, that's cleaving to and searching out God and Joy in a way that it in it's narrow conciousness could not have. Mammels eat Mushrooms and through them can grow so much, or die, if they eat the wrong one. Isn't that so weird?

I once had a girl I met at a String Cheese show, we fell in love in a vulnerable psychedelic desperate openness to the divine revelation of SomeOne else. Her dad was jewish, as if to tell me that she was not, and in a state of messianic trust, I gently went with it to see what we'd learn. We never had sex, only because of her piety, not mine, and once I came out to California to visit her. She was telling me one time she was talking to her Grandmmother about me.

"I told her, hey, I'm like going out with this guy, he's a Chassidic Jew.

And she said, what? aren't they really religious?

And i'm like, no grandma, he's cool, he... smokes weed.

It didn't work out. We couldn't quite surrender to each others truth, we both loved our God pictures too much to give up either our infinities or our particularities. She held very strongly by giving up everything, I felt that it wasn't so honest to think that we ever had, or were willing to usually. And so it goes.

Next Lineage pt 3: Y'know?

Lineage part 1: Rabbis are like assholes

2006-03-24T01:36:00.000+02:00

So, i went crying to my rebbe the other day, because my other rabbi broke my heart.

Is that a weakness, that I have someone that I consider my rebbe? Yes, ultimately, secretly, according to my rebbe, but he has compassion on me despite my weakness, sometimes.

It's a truism that rabbis are like assholes: everybody's got one. By definition, if you're jewish, your tradition is recieved from somewhere, the part of your judaism that isn't just blood or something is your exposure to your Torah. Who taught you your Torah? Your master and teacher.

I grew up with a rabbi and a shul and everything. It broke my heart so much when I realized that I needed better Torah than he could ever give me...

Not to disparage the Torah he did give over, there on the altar every Saturday morning. An expert orator and student in the tradition of R' Yitzchak Hutner, he would say really deep things to an audience who would rarely give an indication of listening very closely. But I did, at least sometimes. It was my first exposure to some of the Torahs that still define my paradime.

And yet, too many of the questions I would come to him with would be given the answers I'd already heard, that we'd all heard a million times. They're very deep answers, so full of meaning that never gets worn out, even the millionth time is a central dogma of Rabbinic Judaism. The more you listen, the more the given pat answer will refine your soul and the more you might come to really understand--

Bullshit, to some degree, sometimes, maybe we really do understand what Rashi was saying, and maybe it's not so insightful anymore, maybe the blood has been drained from the poor Torah, and something more directly and accessibly true is more needed once in a while, if not ALL THE FUCKING TIME FROM NOW ON.

If not. What did Jeremiah mean by "a new covenant?" We know what the christians think, the Jewish tradition is that it means a new relationship with the covenant we've had the whole time... WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT MEANS.

Ugh. My fucking rabbi accused me of thinking i was Jesus Christ last week. Which, in many cultures might be a compliment, but not in our anti-messianic rabbinism, where concern with the world= selling out.

We met last week for dinner, me and the Rabbi of the shul I grew up in. He's the guy what charmed my father back into Judaism, as if that wasn't already just what he'd always wanted.

He was visiting Jerusalem for a bit, hey, why not go out for dinner? My wife is into that healthy food you're into, take us somewhere nice. Great!

We haven't been able to talk for a while, since the shabbos we did a couple years ago. the rabbi comes into the shul at midnight, sees me and a bunch of friends jumping and dancing, singing shabbos songs... boys and girls together. oops! We sat down eventually, and some of my friends there said really deep and/or sweet things, led some quieter devotional songs...
I thought it was all good. The Rabbi said nice things about us in the morning during the sermon.

And from then on he'd veto anything that i'd try to do in and with the shul.

And yeah, looking back I can't imagine being able to expect anything else. R' Adam Baal shem story.

Lineage is everything, not really, but where else would we get the information and language from?

So we meet in the village green, ready for a nice, low key meal. And I have to be unhappy with shallow conversation, and insist on bringing up ideas...

After the shabbos in Williamsburg, I called the Rabbi to ask how he enjoyed the Shabbos, and if it was possible to organize another one like it. He started expressing his suprise and concern over the boys-and-girls sitting together thing. If we were to do something in the shul again we'd have to have them sitting separately.

But the shul meals, the parties are never done separate seating?

"Those are families, not single people!"

Which looking back, was validish in that context. But in the moment, it felt incredibly stupid and short sighted, so said:

God, that's incredibly stupid and short sighted. Do you know how many people were turned on to their first shabbos that shabbos, who never knew how good shabbos could be before, and are now inspired and curious?

The Rabbi expressed his inimpressment with the shabbos that we made. Why not just have them boys and girls sit separatly?
R' Kook talks about the separation between men and women as being one of the most basic aspects of judaism, and anyway, it doesn't matter, this is not up for discussion.

Which really pissed me off a bit, partially inflaming a secret plot in my heart to work around him and just get the permission of the shul memebers, democratic patriotic institution that it is. But do the old men trust me more than the Rabbi? Some sure do... Does it really have to be so comabatative? Can't we work it out somehow?

Anyhow, asked the Rabbi during my brief but ominous silence, why didn't you invite me to speak at the meal?

Oh wow! I'm sorry, it didn't occur to me. I didn't really invite anyone per'se...

You did! Some people got up to speak!

You could have also, i'm so sorry, i didn't realize you wanted to!

Stam, it doesn't matter. Listen, I have to get back to work. I'm sorry I got so angry, I didn't mean to... It's not really who I am...

Rabbi, I'm so happy we're having this conversation, I feel like it's the first itme in a long time that we're really talking at all. Can we continue this some other time.

Sure, sure. I'm pretty busy, but some other time.

And sure enough, some other time didn't happen for quite some time. In public, whenever I would come back from Israel, he would say nice things about me and my spiritual aspirations, and wish good things for me. And then, after the services, we really souldn't talk very much. I would try to fring up ideas and questions that were important or interesting to me that I hoped might turn him on, arousing some kind of insight or something, but nothing. I would try to make him feel appreciate by reminding him of crucial brilliant Torahs that i'd learned from him, to which he would not respond.

Like what you ask? The one that sticks out the most, i heard when i was like twelve. I missed many of his shiurim once I got involved in setting up the shul kiddush downstairs during Krias ha torah, sometimes coming up in time to hear it, but later on, less and less. It could be he started saying less and less of real impact as time went on. More than a few times since I was in Israel and heard him speak as an adult, i've had to walk out in annoyance and dissapointment, but at least once I remember him saying stuf on the level of:

Jacob is punished
By God
for calling Eisav his brother: "My master"

Why? (Keep in mind. This Rabbi is a great Orator, with a booming dramatic voice and strong narration.)

Why is he punished?

We learn that he did the right thing, humbling himself before his brother, to save his life!
And the life of his family!

So why is he punished?

You don't have to die for the sake of pride!

so why is he punished?

I heard from Rav Hutner Z"L

Everybody
Does everything they do
for two reasons.

The good reason, the holy reason.

And the bad reason.

All the best things
and all the worst things.

We do for both reasons.

-----------------------

Psh. amazing right?

I mentioned this Torah to him once, he had no recollection of having ever said it. Our shul maybe had a few more intelligent and demanding people in it when I was young maybe, at least three or four. Now it's only devoted but disinterested old men, who really aren't paying much concious attention, and maybe, he's been through alot too...

So, any how, we meet up at the Village Green. My Sister's there, his wife is too. I didn't get the message to come until an hour late, so i get there after they're done eating. Like a chump, I order food, and sit down to talk.

The small talk gets out of the way quick. Neither of us want to push any buttons. How's your trip? how're the grandkids?

I really want to get some kind of a heart expression out him, I ask about the Yeshiva he learned at when he was young, if he's visited it, what it was like. He gives it over not too enthusiastically. And then what?

And so, I start asking about R' Hutner. And that's where things got out of control.

control is a drug

2006-02-21T17:17:00.000+02:00

Ishbitz dancehall we celebrated at the beginning of Teves. It was a big success and a subtle maybe faliure for a few reasons.

Control is a very important drug, one of those work drugs that magically lets things happen externally instead of internally. All heroism in Judaism is associated less with sacrifice per se' and more with control. All righteousness in Torah before a certain point has to do with (self) control.

This is one of of the distinctions made between Jewish valour and Secular valour, in the world, a hero, a strong man, a Gibbor, is someone who does their will, the early sages tell Alexander, that a hero is one who conquers his own will.

I have a friend, he's very annoyed by that tendency in Judaism, the hafuch al hafuch Moshiach he calls it. By being the opposite of something, i'm really being it, by surrendering, i'm really conquering, by being a criminal i'm really fufilling the law, by failing to redeem, gevalt, am I redeeming... It fudges he meaning of what We're Really Asking For. Only by giving up can you win?

Moses doesn't seem to believe, that, he seems to hold by actual winning. In Parshat Shmos, he does one of the most amazing and dangerous acts of Control-taking imaginable... He kills a cop.

Magic is all about taking control, through Law. Killing a police officer is not unlike killing a very holy angel, and about as dangerous-- and empowering. One of God's greatest virtues is that he overcomes great kings, and wipes out their enforcers.
This is one of the main ways God proves that he's God, is by taking out those who control the world.

Law is magic, as is known. By creating penalties and reactions to a given act, reality is being made. It's very important to Egypt and any other capital based system that it's law be obeyed, or else how else can they control you from taking the wheat for yourself? Slavery depends on a lack of other options.

Control of self and situation is the strongest grace in the world, drawing close money, power and women. Everyone just wants to be around people the can trust.

Arele Steinfeld says that life is always a conflict between what we want and what we believe.

To take control of a situation through violence is very dangerous, and as easy as it was for you to take control is as easy as it will be for someone else to take it from you. And once your will is revealed, you become blind to what wants to happen, such a delicate listening relationship...

The greatest, sweetest things are destroyed by excess control. This is one of the great mysteries of culture, the more music and quality are controlled, the less music and culture are alive, i.e. touching/entertaining. A culture has to grow independent of much resource ("money") to feel authentic, a grass has to be wild to heal strongly. A red heifer must never have had a yoke put on it if it is to be purifective, and the more one tries to force something beyond a certain point, the more it resists.

The Law of Moses is rejected before it's even seen, Shlomo says, why did Moshe smash the first Luchos? He's telling G-d, if your Torah is so small that anyone can reject it or violate it just like that, what good is it? Give us something deeper, more infinite.

I was arguing with someone last week, they were saying, anything you really want, if you want it long enough, strong enough, it can be yours.
That might be true, is it really a good thing to know always? What about love and relationships, where the more something is pushed, the worse it gets maybe?

I'd love to hear a really positive "got someone to love me" story, because I never have heard any, and maybe I don't want to hear that, for fear that I have been wrong in letting go of Lovers and relationships so easily... Like I was supposed to put up a fight or something? I don't understand that at all...

Lets say that I fell in love, like thirty times in the last few months... Like really in love, like would you marry me? I'll change anything about myself if you ask kind of in love... where really, if I knew there was something I could do to make her want me too, I would do it... Would that be a failure of some kind? It would be so sad to try,
for naught, it's so sad to work on things that are already over, andbutandbutand...

Let's say you somehow magically, divinely, know what to do to charm a particular daughter, somehow it was clear...great. Don't mention this, bring her that, say something like this, listen so closely to that... it's easy, almost as if the information is being whispered into your ear by the angel of experience... in a situation like this, you might as well take control, especially if the Other clearly wants something, but somehow either needs help feeling safe with, or invited to. When you know what someone wants/needs, go for it, right away, If YOU REALLY KNOW, REALLY REALLY KNOW, SOMEHOW. Be careful with this, little is more destructive than someone acting like they know when they don't. Knowing is the biggest responsibility ever, science demands that the theories be tested... Somehow.

And when you don't know, you can be so appreciated and filled by listening, listening so much to the new wisdom coming to lucky you.

So, in Tai chi, there's a game we play called push hands. It consist of standing opposite a partner, any partner, in a certain secure, even stance, and trying to knock the Other over. If you push too hard, it's easy to take advantage of your clumsy desperation and let you fall, gently moving out of the way of your bluster.
And if you let the other win a bit, you learn better and faster about their personal weight and vulnerabilities and how to play the game better next time. Losing is often much more useful than winning...

Yeah, that's what losers tell themselves anyway. But why call anyone names?
R Peretz Aurbach once told me, winning is Netsach and losing is Hod, and you need both legs to walk anywhere.

Anyhow, this was the problem with the Ishbitz concert... I was in a Netsachly mode, I had something really that I wanted to express, some connection I really wanted made, between me and the Israelites coming by that night... Aryeh Kaplan translates Netzach as giving to the other according to what you need them to receive, and Hod is giving them what they're needing from you... Yesod, foundation and righteousness is the balance between those two, the secret true will within every relationship. If I really love you, even as I'm trying to give you something, i'm listening so close to hear if that's what you really want/need, and we're only really in love if we're listening that way to each other.

The drunken polacks teach R Yisrael of Ruhzin the secret of true love, right? Remember this story?

Two drunken peasants
are sitting in a bar.
One is saying, maaaan,
I love you SO MUCH
You have no fucking clue
I do, I do

And his friend scoffs, and cries
If You really love me,
then tell me what I need
tell me what I need
If you really loved me
then you'd know

What does Israel really need? If you know, it means you must care. And if it refuses what you're offering. trust and listen, trust and listen, even as your heart bends and breaks.

So yeah, this concert, what really wants to happen? I totally didn't prepare at all, not the music, not the skills, didn't train on their soundsystem... me and some friends booked the whole show four days earlier, basically on a whim, funded by one friend, promoted by two others, vaguely inspired by a whiff of an idea I had had. Everyone in neo-chassidic land loves the Ishbitzer, and nothing was happenning for his yartzeit, which happened to be a saturday night this year...

Me and some friends flaked out to Sinai shortly after booking the show, leaving, like, all of the work in the hands of two girls (Jackie & Daphna = best promoters Evur!) and we only came back right before Shabbos... No preparation at all, almost.

So when we get to the dancehall saturday night to set up, i'm super motivated, enthusiastic, ready and excited. I want to give something really strong over, we spent all our time in the sinai talking antinomian torah, Ishbitzing ourselves up... the message, in some vague way was clear: liberation, there is a priority above the law. Avi Poupko went upstage and told the people that they know God's will in ways that the Shulchan Aruch never could, after having spent days with me in Sinai elaborating on what the Mei Hashiloach is really saying, the fourfold secret to recognizing whether or not a desired thing is really holy or not (p.s. is it worth dying to do? If so then you know.) and such and so forth.

And we get there and Avi's like, OK Yoseph, go for it.

Adam Weinstock, this amazing musician, was visiting from Montreal, we pulled together a band to play with him, they never rehearsed as he was in Sinai with us, got together a did this amazing set, blew everybody away. Before he went on, I spun stuff and made noise on the mike for like fifteen minutes, while the place started to fill up. I'm pretty sure I said something of substance, in some kind of semi musical dubbish way before Adam and his band came on, at which point I just got out of the way, and danced like there was nothing left to do.

I got back on stage during a Jam they were doing, inspired by this compulsion to not neglect the show and the focus. Ambivalent, also not wanting to get in the way of some divine thing happening.

Me and Avi were talking, just how "Antinomian" is this going to be, i asked. As much as you make it, he responded. How much Torah is this going to be, and how much "just" concert? Do as much Torah as you want, Daphna said. Make it meaningful.

So, how much does my ego-need to be successful inspire something great to happen, how much will it ruin the good that is happening?

On some level, the set up was too good to fuck up. Acharit Hayamim was the headliner, Dan Sieradski was the late set DJ, both of whom are awesome at what they do. Acharit Hayamim actually wound up giving the best set of their careers, transcending all kinds of previous limitations and doing something more powerful than I'd ever heard before. Dan was pissed off about going on an hour later than I had figured he'd be able to go on, amongst other technical insults and inconveniences he was forced to accept, almost giving up and going home without going on a few times, before gently rocking the thinned but enthusiastic late night crowd into a psychedelic frenzy, subtly subverting religious and legal assumptions while a mike got passed back and forth between me and others...

At one point, at a few points, I slinked on stage with Acharit Hayamim to give something over while they played, as if to jam with them, but I didn't clear that with the band before hand, nor give any clear idea of what was to happen because there was not one nessesarily. The band's manager came up to me and asked me to please stop while the band was playing.

I could insist, right? It's my show, and i'm in charge.

So much listening for what really wants to happen.

A bunch of little is-this-a-crisises unfolded and were resolved. Avi commanded the band to have me come on stage and say something at one point, which I really needed him to do to feel justified... It's very hard for me to believe that i'm in charge of anything, that I have a right to be, that it's good to act as if I am. My religion treats all law and order, all force as an evil, ultimately to be avoided except when? When life is in danger?

The main thing love has ever taught me is Don't Push, just listen. When am I to forget that lesson? Dare I ever?

It worked well throughout, the show. Just enough torah was given over to not miss the point of the Torah itself, which was the party. The music was appropriately high, holy, and just short of messianic, and we all had a great time. It was really astounding to see how easy it is to pull something together that tons of people come to and appreciate forever...

The main Torah I gave over was the piece about why does Moses only go to pick up Joseph's bones as the Israelites are leaving Egypt? Why doesn't he pick them up earlier?

Until that point
God was talking to him
all the time. Telling him what to do.

After the ten plagues
suddenly, God wasn't saying anything.
So Moses asked the oldest woman he could find,
if there was any tradition about what to do before leaving Egypt

Serach daughter of Asher tells him, yeah
we have to get Joseph's bones, they're hidden right here

And we learn from this
When The voice of God is speaking
follow that
And when it's not
look up the halacha.

It ended at like three thirty, which felt like a failure to me, to walk away while people were still rocking out, but I had made a commitment to one of the musicians to personally help him lug some of his equipment back with him, and so... more surrender, an excuse to get offstage while the crowd is still applauding.
People seemed impressed afterwards, I woke up the morning after, feeling fufillled like I hadn't in a long-- ever. Like there was nothing left to do... for a few hours, before the rest of the life rush started to wash over me and the question "What are you going to do NOW?!" started screaming in my head again.

Really, all i'd like to do is throw parties like that all the time. My fantasy is to have a dancehall temple of my very own, feeding people by day, rocking out by night,
sustained by volunteers who would come by to live and worship, and some kind of righteous positive industry, like hot lunches, brown rice and beans, and/or home brewed date wine. All in due time, my mother says... if I stop working towards it for a moment, i'm failing my g-d, and I can't push too hard, or all my efforts will collapse, as per the pattern in my life every time i've tried to force anything to happen before.

The show was a big success for the bar hosting us. We didn't charge nothing, just paid for renting the space, and the party people drank like jahfilte fish, earning the invitation of the bar to Acharit Hayamim to play every saturday night. And the last couple weeks in a row, they have! Pretty good crowd, not as high musically as the Ishbitz show, which actually created new firmaments between the heavens, but still funariffic, with Jerusalem's hottest neo-chassidic bands openning.

Was planning to play with them this saturday night, but now i'm putting it off for a bit. Maybe next week> Who'll come if we do?

Any how, it's the Kotsker Rebbe's Yartzeit this monday night, so let's end with a thought.
Why was man created?
To purify themselves into heaven?

No
Couldn't be
it's not a good enough reason
Wouldn't have been worth it.

Man was created to make heaven higher
and don't you forget it.

2006-02-01T19:04:00.000+02:00

I'll write more soon. meanwhile, I found an old archive of an American Oleh living in Nachlaot in the late eighties, growing grass and toasting it on the stove, and introducing the not-quite-legendary "Hatzbani Green" strain to the north

http://www.well.com/~ari/writing/bivas.html

Historical curiousities abound: we are not the first to walk these steps.

In a daze, 'cause I found G-d

2005-12-14T14:18:00.000+02:00

The Talmud tells us that without the ability to forget, man would soon cease to learn.

(fat bowl of hash to the first person who can quote which gemara!)

Did you ever do drugs in order to forget something that you had been forced to learn?

This what Chanuka is about.

Maoz Tzur tells us how these impure greeks surrounded me, and defiled all my oils.They penetrated my walls and ruined everything inside. Children of understanding,eight"days", were now set for songs and celebrations.

Not knowing, R' Nachman tells us, is true knowledge, as is known (ha, ha!) Pretetendingto not know,however, is very dishonest, done traditionally for the sakeof the children,the citizens, to give them the pleause of believing. Buuuuuut,once someonecomes along and shatters the illusion, what's to do? Just because I found out there's no Santa Claus means I can't have Christmas anymore,l'havdil?

Thisis the problem with light, excess and otherwise. Once you're forced to see,the affectionate groping in the dark is made to end,and the wonderful thingwe were able to pretend can't fool nobody. Onlyonce the lights are dimmedagain can we sink back into what we once didn'tknow.

Rabbinic Judaism,that is, Judaism At All, begins with the Greek encounter, so says R' TzadokHakohen. Alexander comes to Jerusalem, and falls in love with us all. He sees a parrallel culture, guided by some kind of marriage of wisdom and passion,and is so happy to learn that his Greece isn't the only civilized thing in the world. And he begins a dialog with "the wise men of Israel" (so wise they don't even care about having names) asking some questions back and forth, and responding to theirs.

"Which of you is the wisest? We all know as much as each other."

"Who is called rich? One who's happy with what he has."

"Who is a hero? Someone who can conquer his own will."

These are the beginnings of Judaism, and the end of revelation. What's each of these answers giving? antidotes to the sickness implied by the question.

The Maharsha claims that with each question, Alexander was asking for praise, his favorite drug of all, and with each one, proto-chazal were giving him something else. in the end, he threatens to kill them for it, but for the promise he made at the beginning of the conversation that he wouldn't hurt them for their answers.

Why is it wrong to dose someone against their will? Because they'll resent you for it, and the whole trip will only be their resentment. That's the only reason, it's wrong to give anyone something they won't appreciate, only because then it's thrown away. If you could force them to appreciate it, on the basis of it's what they were asking for, it's something else, and then Alexander dresses them in finery and rides them around town.

It's one of the most obnoxious subversive habits of Judaism and Philosophy, to de-fang any idea-threat by telling it the opposite. Any truth is suddenly harmless, and assimilable. Nothing has to change. Also, may save our lives, like drinking saved the Indians.

A friend of mine was smoking trees on Shabbos once. Piquach nefesh, he said, I woke up So Destroyed, it was the only thing I could do to save Shabbos.

I ain't never done that per se, although I did once give up and try to make a phone call with my elbow, someone I was so desperate to talk to. I got her answering machine, nebuch.

Another Sabbatean inyan is to celebrate purim on chanuka, and everybody knows: chayuv Eenish LiBisUoMaY, Man needs to spice (intoxicate) himself, until he doesn't know.

What if
we're not all that different
at all?

Antiochus's sin is trying to force illumination through violence. Violence is a symptom of rush, and impatience. "Don't wait for the translation (look up)" In this the Hellenists and the Sabbateans share a messianic fascism that is so compelling because Truth must not be denied.

It can't be true
That Shabbos doesn't matter
especially not
If i'm being forced to stop it

It can't be true
That Ice cream is unhealthy
It's so good
And you're just trying to keep me
from the pleasures of the world to come

How do you know something is good? Taste it.
How do you know something is real? When it tastes good, you want to believe.

There's a midrash
Where does the pure oil
hidden inside the temple
the one flask that was unpolluted
come from?

The dove
that gave Noah and olive branch
where did that olive branch come from?
The Garden of Eden. Remember?

The oil
pressed from that branch
was saved
and passed down, from Noah to Shem to Jacob
The forgotten little flasks
That he returned to retrieve
Leading him to fight the spectre of Rome
were that oil
passed on to become the anointing oil of Moses, and the Holy Vessels
and all the Kings and Shamans
until the end

The light of the eighth level
the level of understanding beyond the fiftieth gate
beyond where there is choice
an understanding that leaves only acceptance in it's wake

...

What's happened, Adam wonders

Where did the light go, he asks?

It's right here, G-d tells him, and candles are invented.

It's right here inside you.
...

Maybe something's different now

Now that we can Communicate

with the enemy
learn his language

Oh, no

the opposite
the opposite

No support

No support for what you're thinking

Lord

We need not a voice
but new music
and context what can bring us together

A home is not a resourse
A temple is not a home, except for those who sleep and eat there

Lord show our feets to the beats the mysterious wonderful whatever's going on

I don't want to dance to names and identities
that a new that a new beat should ring forth from New Jerusalem

Your nakedest name only that dare not be spoken

The bnei Yissascher brings down a tradition
that in the Temple in Jerusalem, Adam and Eve's Solstice holiday was still being kept
Until the year of the Maccabbee victory, it was always on the solar cycle day of december 21st
And on the year of the re-taking of the Temple from the Greeks, it was changed to That Day
the 25th of Kislev, which was now a tad late.
Lighting eight fires on burning spears every night according to one opinion

There was some question, (the bnei Yissascher reports)
as to what would be the next year
when would we observe the holiday?
On the traditional solstice
or on the new day set by the maccabbees?

And it just so happened that that year
the 25th of Kislev came before the 21st of December
and lo
the spirit of the holiday was already in the air
Happy holidays folks!

p.s. Does this seem related to y'all?

www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta18.html

2005-11-27T21:30:00.000+02:00

Rainbow Israel is winding down, and i'm not there anymore. Among important things heard, felt and seen there, that one song, "Mi ha ish ha chafetz chaim" got played alot. from proverbs:

Who is the man
who longs for life
loves days, to see good

save your tongue from evil
and your lips
from speaking "deceit" (MiRMah)
ask for peace
and pursue her.

I asked Josh Laufer, what is Mirmah? He said, trying to get someone to belive that what you're saying is true. I nodded thoughtfully, processing, and he grinned, saying: What? You really believed me?

I asked Yaakov about that pasuk, and he sighed: "How can we talk, make each other feel things, how we express something deeper without lies and deceit? I don't like that idea at all."

Is Jesus Christ the Messiah, he asked someone?
No, I don't think so, they said. He was Jewish, of course, and was programed from birth to believe in the non-divinity of Yayshu above all things.

Is Christianity a lie then?
The same person COULDN'T QUITE say "no." How could something so many people be living be called a lie?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Israeli Rainbow gathering secretly commemorates one of the oldest Israeli anti-jewish holidays, the eighth month festival of Yerovoam ben Nevat. Upon seceding from King Solomon's empire, along with most of Israel, with the full permission and authority of God to annointed king over the new Israel, Yerovam makes it illegal to go to Jerusalem for the seventh month holidays, Rosh Hashana through Hoshana Rabba, instead instituting the eighth month, cheswan, to be the messianic holiday season. Eight is higher than Seven, some say.

This is the level of Lo Bashamayim hi, taking the holidays and making them our own, by re-decreeing when and how they are celebrated. And so, the Cheshvan rainbow holiday is so important, that even when one year I had to be in America for it, I threw a Mushroom Party in my parent basement (don't tell my mom!) with hopes of invoking some divine voice to speak with/through me and my friends.

There's two voices in heaven, commerorated every time we say the Kedusha. The Ophanim maintain religiously that Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts, and All the World is Full of His Glory. The Seraphim, flaming SeRPents that they are, insist that Blessed Is the Glory of God In It's Place, followed by the piercing question "Where is the place of his glory" and, "When will he rule in Zion? Hopefully soon, and then forever (but not yet.)

I heard an old Chabad child at Rainbow this year insist that the rule says very clearly, for everytime one says "yechi hamelech" the king lives, he has to match it with "Ad Musai?" Until when? will the Other thing rule in his place.

And so, when the trip began, we started banging on drums, and singing and talking... and somehow the secret history of chassidus came up, and out.

The Baal shem tov was annointed by the same master who annointed Jeroboam Ben Nevat, Ahijah the Shilonite, along with Elijah the Prophet. He came to him in visions with the secret to working out what the good in Judaism was/is.

What did these two figures have in common? Both lost their places in the world to come for the sake of bringing something profound to the world. Yeroboam's holiday was celbrated in two temples, in Shilo and Dan, with less controlled pietistic services, instead featuring a ritual around two Golden Calves. Some Chazal maintain that these were idolotrous practices, the Ibn Ezra insists not. The Golden Cows were a symbol of Josephean heritage, and perhaps some older popular tradition relating to cattle cults, and the great fruit of their shit: Mushrooms.

Once the voice spoke so loud, almost to us all, and we said Stop: or we'll die. In Israel, it's not so clear that they weren't so willing to die, a few hundred years later. The Davidic Messiah lives and does not die, he stays Jewish forever. But only the Josephean Messiah dies, and trancends Israel to light up the whole world with the Torah, as we learn in the midrash

When Joseph was born
Jacob stopped fearing Esau, Rome, the World
Because if Jacob was a fire
Then Joseph would be like a match,
And Esau-Rome, like a big pile of hay

A Josephean Messiah speaks the seventy languages of the world, ultimatly appearing to die as he assimilates into it, ultimatly coming to rule it in the guise of a very good slave, with access to divine wisdom. The Ten Tribes of Israel assimilate into the world? Or become the whole world, infecting it with montheism and making it safe for the Judean children to play in, maybe.

And so the Baal shem Tov received the secret semicha from a band of wandering Kabbalists, who taught him how to learn directly from ascended masters. Next time, we will talk about
where the tradition went from there, and Other Things Mushrooms have taught me.

2005-10-31T16:56:00.001+02:00

A master race is a work in progress.

This is the big confusion between people who call zionism racism and Jews who scoff that there's quite a polyglot of races and cultures inside the acceptable parameters of Judea. Who chose us from all the nations, some from that nation, some from that, to here, Israel, at the end of the world.

I was visiting with Areyeh the Kohen Gadol of Jerusalem the other night. Maintaining that he is the high priest of El, and the reincarnation of Moses, Aaron, and Samuel, he lights seven lamps every day according to the biblical injunction, along with slaughtering his own lambs and maintaining his own mishkan in the backyard. Also, he smokes fat bowls of homegrown grass, in home carved hemp pipes, whenever guests come by, for as long as they can handle.

He holds strongly by mystical choseness, namely that he was chosen from all the world to be God's prophet, the arch-foe and redeemer of the American Federal Government, which knows of him and fears his wrath. He speaks in the prophetic style; statement of truth that cannot be argued or clarified very much. He bagen reading to us exceprts of old egpytian hermetic texts speaking of the emergence of God's chosen people into the world, ushering in an era of love, light, and revelation. The friend who drove me to his house whispered to me rhetorically: "What's this he's reading? Nazism."

I suppose the main difference is who can join. As far as I understand it, there's no way someone who isn't Aryan can become part of the Nazi family, although he can be listed in the phone book

from www.redress.binternet.co.ukm:

Brenner believes that similarities between the Nazi and Zionist ideologies
were the main reason for the collaboration,
and many of his readers tend to overestimate this resemblance.
But they should not forget
that all nationalist ideologies
possess in various degrees traits like Blut und Boden
(blood and soil).
Therefore, resemblances among many nationalist movements are not surprising.
In addition,
persecuted people tend to internalize the attitudes of their oppressors,
as the famous psychoanalyst Franz Fanon argued in his book The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 1965).
The Zionist-Nazi cooperation was in fact based less on common ideology and more on common interests:
both movements,
for different reasons,
worked towards removing the Jews from Europe.
This was the main reason for the Transfer Agreement of the 1930s, which established the JA as the general importer of German goods in the Middle East and helped the Jewish Agency to cope with an economic crisis.

Judaism and it's modern expression in Zionism, on the other hand, exludes and judges according to committed affiliation, not just blood. Is this really true? There's been some push to convert russian immigrants to Israel, who, hell, are here already, so we might as well. This is a concept rooted in traditional Talmudic law, the main qualifier for conversion to Judaism is not stam belief in the one God (although it does kinda say that too in Mesechta Megillah,) It's commitment to the tribe, and identification with. Your land is my land, your life is my life.

What's the big deal about being chosen? What power does knowing this give you?
Once you feel like you have a right to something, be it land, toys, or love, it's suddenly Ok to take it from someone who "doesn't" and not feel bad. Areyeh Hakohen says, that's the non-secret of the biblical injunction, not to charge interest from your brother, but to charge it from gentiles instead.

This is the central evil of Judaism, one that may not be overcomeable for as long as anyone cares to worry about it.

If by being chosen
We are more obligated to The Other
We may neglect our own children
chas v' shalom

If we must take care of our own
at the expense of the other
we will be doing wrong
To them
and they might notice

Lord!
please help us to only do good
somehow

If the good I depend on
came from evil
It might not make me depend on it any less

Please
let our survival and our growth
come not from atrocity
but from good deeds
no matter what

2005-10-06T20:38:00.000+03:00

So, there's a conflict sometimes, between Truth and Peace, both of which are names of God.

Ever feel like there was something so wrong with the way your family, your community, your religion or government was doing something? Don't tell them. It's forbidden.

Not really. Unless they already did it. After someone got ripped off on a deal, you have to tell him, "wow! what a great deal!" Because it doesn't help to bum him out afterwards. But if he's going to go do it again, or for the first time, or if he can get restitution somehow, then it's ok, you can actually be honest with him.

This is a big Machloket/conflict within chassidis, notably between the Kotsker and the Apter, but deeper, between the Kotsker, and to some degree, the Izhbitzer.

The respective torahs of Izbitz and Kotsk on the surface are pretty similar. Eli Wiesel did a nice piece contrasting the subtle but dramatic differences between the two. He boiled it down to few percieved compromizes that the Izbitzer makes, notably re: sex and conception.

The Izbitzer holds
That in order to make babies
you have to forget about god
just for a moment
and from that forgetting
comes lack of godliness
that gives the newborn a yearning
for the divine that he never knew

The Kotsker holds
how can you ever let yourself forget god?
how dare you accept such a thing?

In that question,
is the challenge to anyone who would dope themselves away from one reality
in order to be at peace with the work you're doing
which is the whole working world
chas v shalom

It's a challenge to Judaism and it's acceptable delusions, this idea. You think you're in yeshiva all day in order to serve god? This is a very mean and acid thing to suggest, that all our mythic pleasures are not nessesarily as sacred and important to God as we may pretend, for the sake of community.

For the sake of comm-unity, all kinds of lies are not only accpetable, they're encouraged. Mottleh, that was the highest davening ever! Your dead grandparents are looking down at you with so much naches right now! Every time we attach an "is" "was" or "are" statement to something that is not experienced directly, we become liars for the sake of something. Maybe peace. And the meanest thing you can do to someone is cut them down for it.

Famous Kotsker story
The guy sitting at the shabbos table
lovingly lifts up a spoon full of chulent
and with a pious joyful sound, proclaims:

"Lkavod shabbos kodesh!"

Which the Kotsker followed up with
lifting a spoon full of stew to the air
and testifying:

"Lkavod my gut!
you liar."

The radical truth of Pshische
That God is bigger than you ever knew
and ultimatly
Is not impressed by nothing nessesarily
as far as you know
That true service depends not
on knowing that he's going to do anything for you
and that he's not going to love you more
because you are pious
according to the law
is reflected in both rebbes.

The difference is in how to relate to that truth.

The Izbitzer seems to maintain
we're all liars
and that's ok
it's not our fault
And that worse than lying
is getting angry
Play the game
knowing it's just a game
and don't worry too much
about winning or losing

The kotsker
is really bothered by that compromise
(more on that soon.)

rainbow pic: my favorite!

2005-10-02T13:03:00.000+03:00

From this year's national gathering in West Virginia. For more info on Rainbow gatherings, check out www.welcomehome.org

Know: Sugar is the drug

2005-09-25T14:30:00.001+03:00

Eli Wiesel describes his introduction to kabbalah at age twelve or so through the writings of R' Nachman of Breslov, then difficult torah to come by. Breslov was pretty much illegal, it's furious critism of mainstream rabbinic leadership across the board rendered R'Nachman's writings taboo.

I met a real, old school, poverty stricken Breslov chassid in Mei Shearim last week. He hadn't eaten in like two weeks, in response to some internal hemorraging. He would not see a doctor, because that would only be more dangerous, and instead, was just seeing it through, not moving from his house, praying all the time forever. He had had his kids taken from him by either the state or the local chassidic leadership, he couldn't quite tell which, some years ago, and was living away from his wife, who had either left him, or somehow he was keeping some distance from, in an attempt towards higher purity.
He was being supported, sent fruits and whole grains, by a local anti-zionist chassidic Gvir, but nontheless refused to be specifically anti-zionist himself. "Of course the governement is evil, but it doesn't help to hate jews!"

He described the early days of R Yisrael Bar Odesser's ministry, a non-existant thing. R Yisrael, A.k.a. the Saba (grandpa) a.k.a. na nach nachma nachman me uman, was another poor fringed shlepper who was really into R' Nachman's torah, and suffered total alienation from the rest of the chassidic community because of it. His family was taken off the chassidic charity doll what takes care of everyone else who needs it in Mea Shearim, and his wife and kids promptly starved to death.
His saintly virtue is that he refused to stop being happy all through it, as radical an anti-consumerist a message as anyone could live, maybe.

This was the condition of Breslov historically, it's teachers totally booted out of chassidus in alot of the larger community, it's ideas totally avoided. Where did Eli Wiesel get access to these marginalized texts and teaching?

From Kotsker Chassidim, who didn't give a fuck.

People occasionally ask me what kind of chassid I am. I say different things at different times, but the lineage I think I have to claim closest relationship would have to be pshiche. Why?

Because it's nice to cleanse the parasites out of our guts sometimes

Sugar is the devil, is the excess that is killing most lately, and is the most socially acceptable, even for children, the most vulnerable and addictable amongst us.

Meod, excess is the building and definition of evil. Concetrated sweetener, once rare and requiring much effort to find sometimes, if honey wasn't in season or available... dates and figs ain't holy for nothing. Sweet potatoes, carrots, brown rice, millet, etc. are what our bodies are actually longing for, love in the form of whole sweetness, with Substance; sourness, bitterness, saltiness and/or charif fire cleansing your system from the toxic excesses that an insatiable psychological need to be comforted with sweetness... It's the deepest yearning, and cake, like many of the associative mistranslations of what the serpent is actually asking for.

This is true in religion also. Pietism is a rejection of the sweetness of the world, and chassidis appears to me an attempt to reclaim it. And the fear of chassidis and for that matter, sabbateanism and california, I percieve as a deeply rooted fear of sugar excess making us weak, which it does. Sweetness in moderation is very empowering, in excess, sweet, unavoidable excess, is crippling, makes you sleepy, gassy and complacent, terrified of discomfort.

Most of the early school of chassidis feel to me like an attempt just to get the sugar around. By pshiche, you have an attempt to burn away the excess, while somehow maintaining the good part of it. All pshiche torah, even the darker kotsk stuff, hints at a sweetness available somewhere.

Understand, all chassidic pietism is ultimatly for the sake of sensitizing to the sweetness. Elimelech of Lizhensk sets his arm on fire and feeds himself to ants, and in the songs about him, he's dancing so happily, smoking his pipe and leaping in the air. Later polish chassidis is an attempt to refine that. How much do we really have to hurt to feel the good? How can we do it safely?

(to be continued)

2005-09-21T13:46:00.000+03:00

I saw a friend in the street esterday, he told me was learning at a local Yeshiva, and was impressed and even envious of the depth of the learning. What was the sheeta that was so impressive?

Start with the assumption that the people arguing in the gemara could not be arguing over what they appear to be, that the two machloketeers must not actually have very divergent ideas or viewpoints, only subtle distinctions on how best to come to what they both already agree on.

And all the darshaning around has to assume that, with the imagination only circulating around the conditions surrounding the conclusion, with no contact against the conclusion itself.
This is depth, apparently.

------

To clarify the previous post: the main thing Israel needs to justify it's current incarnations and the assorted evils implicit in it, to both it's own people and to the rest the world that depends on Israel for guidance and meaning, is to make Israel into a place at least moving towards an existence close to the dream of what Zion and Israel has meant, to the prophets and musicians, since it was first imagined.

To do this, we need the sacred union of the imagination and the will to manifest the imagined.
The problem with building paradise is it's never actually what you wanted it to be. That might be ok, but knowing it diminishes the will to even try. Herzl's dream was facilitated by it's shallowness: not utopia but normalopia, with jewish theives being tried by jewish judges, arrested by jewish cops, paid off by jewish mafiosos, with friends in the corrupt jewish government watching out for them. Easy, right?

Zev Jabotinsky longed for the new jew to be a people "powerful, loving and cruel." Hitler similarly described the "new man" of his visions: "I have seen the new man: he is intrepid and cruel. I am afraid of him." Cruelty is empowering for someone without vessels to imagine a better way of winning, or reason to belive in the futility of cruelty, having surrendered to it's power so often in our lives. And so, we have become chofshi in our collective minds, only through our willingness to be cruel, initially to our enemies, but also to our families, for the sake of keeping them safe... or something.

As long as our sense of safety and security depends on our employment of the cruel, we are not going to stop, and it will come back to us in the same form.

How can anyone be held accountable for murder, if people only die when they are decreed to, one gemara asks? Someone who kills his brother can theoretically come before the court with the perfectly reasonable argument: I just shot him in the face, officer, but he only died because it was his time, right?

So Chazal say, sure, maybe so, but you must have sinned somewhere to be the bearer of his death, and you're about to get punished for that, and so: justification for cruelty doesn't repel the onesh of having commited it, it simply accepts the repurcussion that may follow as being worth it.

I used to have this argument with police officers in Israel when ever they'd search me randomly.
Religious people, i'd be like, y'know, if you had found something on me, and screwed me because of it, G-d would punish you for it one day, right?

No, i'm just doing my job, i mean, following what i'm supposed to do.

That won't justify anything you do before the heavenly courts.

No, it will. I will say to the administering angels: "I am a police officer, just like you, I am doing my judge, and you must blame only the ones giving the order."

I held it's not so true, responsibility belongs to everyone involved, and justice will be had inevitably from those who run from it the most... so what?

I feel like the main function of torah study as it is now is to keep people out of trouble, shtieging instead of hunting. Supported by tzdeka, it makes every body involved feel good. And it doesn't get anyone's hands dirty, with the possible exception of fundraisers and purity defenders.

This is not where the torah of transcending old patterns can come from, I don't think. it never has been yet, Chassidis traditionally being Not That, but centered more around drinking parties and public meal celebrations, weddings and so on. The binding of Chassidic ideas to The Torah World redeemed the yeshiva from stagnancy, and continues to almost make it worthwhile, but where is the torah of transcending old dangerous limiting thinkings going to come from?

Which dangerous old limiting thinkings? The nature of language and "figuring things out" that we depend on to "deal with the problem" is part of the problem, the fight that is inherent in the process. It could be that this has been an inherent part of creation and being up until now, the war, MAYBE IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ANYMORE? Almost? Soon?

mmm. MMM. I don't want to figure out more effecient structures, unless i'm sure that's the only thing I can do to help. And even then, it's such a betrayal to the ideal, and maybe I could find a justification one day that would convince me it was the only righest thing to do... but what could inspire the better torah to come into the world?

The innovation, according to Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev, of Israel to religion, is the service of god out of love only, not need or effectiveness.

There's a problem with saying this: the main reason we serve god is actually for effectiveness: so that we will not be killed, destroyed, or otherwise displeasuresd. To love god because it's easier and more effective than fearing the master might make it a little better? But it's still not purely lshmah, and such a state might only be possible from not serving at all.

Let's say my mom asks me to do something for her... does her love depend on whether I do it or not? of course not!, I hope. How do I know for sure? Only if i'm obnoxious and refuse. And maybe get punished.

Knowing this, feeling this doesn't nessesarily make me a better son... doesn't help her live, theoretically, the rightest, nicest thing I can do is whatever she asks... but maybe, sometimes, disobeying now will make me be able and more willing, more free to really care later, and that's what lishma means.

There's been talk recently about what the chiluk between the Kotsker and the Ishbitzer was, What Shlomo was prioritizing and the confusion it causes in modern neo-chassidic culturre, and what it says about judaism now. It has to do with this subtle but far rammifying question, of when does honestly demand rebbelion, when is submission idolotry... Next time, on Cannabischassidis.

Jerusalem Syndrome: chatanu lefanecha

2005-09-04T23:01:00.000+03:00

I just got home to Jerusalem last week. here's a quick summary of popular street Torahs, and how I've been responding to them.

Most popular street torah/dope, heard alot from different folks is the classic "gam zu l'tovah"
It's a bad sign when this is the most useful thing we can think of to say. It's true of course, and helpful at letting you be utterly defeated in good concience.

First thing I find myself giving over alot, picked up shortly once I got off the plane, from Yaakov Sack:

What the difference between Emunas Chachamim and faith in Jesus?

One could say alot of things, but both are predicated on trusting someone else with your decisions, on the basis of their relative infallibility and superior awareness of What God Wants.

One main difference is the freedom we have to decide who are the chachamim, but really, it's pretty much the same. I am encouraged to surrender my judgement in exchange for freedom from the yoke of personal responsibility.

If you can't trust your friends your leaders your gods, who can you trust?

Israel is a tad frustrating, because even more than usual, you can't trust the government. It's authority was predicated on it's betrayal of it's people, tricking away money from trapped German Jews, funding a cash starved Nazi Germany in exchange for resoures, selling Yemenite children, abusing any non-wealthy immigrant group that ever came in, and now just screwing over anyone without protectzia in almost any agency that is available. There's a temptation to differentiate between the Bad Israel authority and the Good Israel Fantasy, except that the good seems so personal and individualized.

So why am I here?

There was a strong tendancy, the shabbos after Katrina and Katif to connect the two situations, nicely parodied by dov bear on his blog, and reflecting the mysterium tremendum: What the hell is Israel about, anyway?

The synchronities seem to encourage some kind of relationshipship, if not the one we might jump to make, that the U.S.'s "sins" in supporting the disengagement was why "They" were punished. More profound, I heard from Josh Lauffer, traditionally, in Tanach/gemara/jewish tradition, when someone is expelled from a place, it's because they were so reprehensible to G-d, that he tolerated them for a while thanks to some memory of their forefathers, but just got so annoyed by something in the way they were conduting themselves, that he saw fit to remove them. What did Gush Katif do so worng that Hashem saw fit to disengage his presence from there?

Israel, to most of the western religious world, including all christianity, all Islam, a sizeable chunk of humanity to be sure, associates Israel with some divine dream of a better future, either beyond This World, or at least a seriously modified version of it, where all people can live in peace after the evil has been clarified from all our hearts. All Christians and Muslims understand this as being God's promise to Abraham, to Moses, etc.

Jews in Israel appear to be accepting and naming a place called Israel, that does not mean to do that, has no intentions in that direction, and, for the world and to it's own citizens, means the opposite of that: A tightly controlled, racially and economically divided and defined society, who main tools and cultural tendancys are violence, yelling, power used to dominate Others, threats of torture and so on to accomplish, suceed and score respect. This is what we heretics have consented to call Israel, to be Israel.

It's not anyone's fault, of course, sure enough, we were/are afraid of dying, and as Douglas Rushkoff points out, drowning people will fight against anyone trying to help them, out of pure physical instinct. Right? Excuses...

So, meanwhile, half a world away, there is an administration that is waiting on Israel for cues. Anti-semites are right to blame Israel for America's forign policy, The U.S. attitude towards "terror" imitates Israel's much the way Christianity kinda imitates biblical morality: Because the bible emphasises war and killing "idoloters" so much, so have Christians. and the mystery of how to understand G-d will is understood through Jewry.

Israel the country has not had any kind of utopian aspiration in quite some time. Instead, a kind of practical capitalism has become The Way, and politicians and rabbis alike have generally refused to demand much more of ourselves than our opposition for terror. Govt. after Govt. have defined themselves almost exclusively in response to "the enemy" almost none have ever described a social policy for making a more equitable Israel, where teachers and civil servant make a living wage, where the main industries aren't overseas corporations, where the poor can get jobs that let them support themselves effectively, where corruption and the abuses of homeowners against renters can be dealt with AT ALL. Not even part of the discourse, because of our war on terror.

Say whatever you want about Palestinians, it doesn't take away any of the official culpability to it's own citizens, it doesn't jutify how much of Israeli wealth is based on things, lands and moneys stolen from both jews and gentiles.

What's the faliure of Gush Katif and the religious culture in Israel? That it makes no effort to adress these things either, instead nitpicking over petty tsniout or not-enough-daf-yomi issues to blame for the divine wrath. No better dream of how to make Israel more like Israel, no active, practical way of ensuring justice except by encouraging you to say tehilim.

I heard Dan Sieradski say, Gush Katif is proof that god doesn't care about people's heartfelt prayers and tears if they're not connected with anything else.

And the U.S. military arrogance, the one that all the news feeds criticizing President Bush's response to Katrina in New Orleans conspiuously refused to mention, was that why isn't the U.S. Govt. paying attention to poor people? Because Israel taught them that the trik is to focus on the fight, and everyone else, from pastor to peasant, will praise you and vote for you for it.

So yes, Katrina is a consequence of Katif. And that's not something to be proud of, but something to really worry about.

To be consistant with this site's purpose, i'll tie it back to psyhedelic drugs and torah: Imagine something better, talk to your neighbors and enemies, listen to their struggles and specific grievances, and try something new. Trip, at once, with serious focus and intention, asking your G-d to please, shine on you, some new torah and posiibility that aking sober life wouldn't let you consider. The way to be a more helpful, involved human being, is all i'm ever apologizing most for not being, having given up on. Most of world Jewry is in about to be in Israel, and we need prophesy back more than ever, that is, if we aren't willing to say "gam zu li tovah" at our children's funerals, chas v'shalom, lo aleinu, lord have mercy on us all.

Not yours to sell

2005-09-01T15:03:00.000+03:00

This translation is from www.sacred-text.com. They say it's megillah page 72

"It will not be lawful to buy books of the Prophets," etc. The schoolmen propounded a question: May old Holy Scrolls be sold, to purchase with the money new ones? Shall we assume that as the new ones have no preference over the old ones, they may not be sold; or that if the old ones are not sold, the new ones cannot be had, therefore it may be done?

Of course, what we're talking about is ideas, beliefs. Can I replace an old Torah that I lived by, but has become worn out with one that is as good, as effective, but fresher?

Come and hear:

Rabba bar bar Hana said in the name of R. Johanan, quoting R. Simeon b. Gamaliel:

One must not sell old scrolls for the purpose of buying new ones.
Ah!, But there it is different:
It is a precautionary measure
lest he sell the old ones without buying new ones;
but here the question is about such as are already written,
and he ready
for us
to be obtained when the money is had.
How is the law? Come and hear:
R. Johanan said in the name of R. Meir:

What is the money through which Torah is scored? Whatever we give up for it. Whatever work we did to earn it.
Schar, everyone know, the hebrew term for wages and money, also refers to karma. Every belief you have to guide you is costing you something precious, some part of yourself, and so, it had better be worth it.

In any case the Holy Scrolls must not be sold,
except for the purpose of using the money
for study,
or for marriage.
From this we see that to exchange the Law for study,
one may;
so to exchange old scrolls for new ones,
one may also.

But perhaps it is different,
because from studying
he will know how to act;
and marrying?
because it is written [Is. xlv. 18]:

"Not for naught did he create it; to be inhabited did he form it."

That is, the study is not only for it's own sake. Marriage is whenever you find something so good, you want to tie yourself to it forever. Torah, secretly, is for the sake of being able to acquire the great creative good, to keep the world Alive, and inspire something wonderful between people. All good Torah is on the level of marriage.

Anyone care to translate "inhabited" better for us? I'll race y'all...

So of course, it's a mystery. When to let go of an old Torah in order to pick up a new one? How could anyone ever?
Only once the old one is totally and utterly useless, destroyed, or illegible. It still must be buried righteously.

There's a problem with Am Yisrael all the time. On Sinai and since, we could only ever hear as much as we wanted to, could only understand as much as we were willing to. Am toei lavuv heim, a wrong-hearted nation, as we confess every friday night. We try, and try to hear it better all the time, and we are only ever defeated in Torah when we give up listening, and assume we understood. Or worse, we let someone else understand for us, and hide ourselves under their skirts.

Which is what we're encouraged to do all too often, surrender to someone else's "torah." Every king is required by law to write his own, and maybe it's time we all agreed to make each other Kings.

It was interesting watching new theologies form out of the disengagement. We couldn't ever be made to leave, so when we were, to say that we were wrong feels so dishonest. Just because i lost the fight means i'm wrong? How could it be? So the new theology becomes that we're eventually going back, ha ha. Nothing learned, nothing changed.

What is The Land of Israel is something other than what we've been willing to understand it as?

What if the whole reason we're allowed back into the land is to learn that it couldn't be all the land Is?

I find myself wondering this alot. How else could we let go of a wrong idea unless we lived it? How else could we stop yearning to be a dumb nation like every other unless we tasted the experience of it?

Lord! clarify my faith. What shall I hold by? What dare i believe in?