text:
Rav Kook and the Artists of Jaffa (Derashah Vayishlach 5778)
I gave this derashah this morning, and liked it enough to post it here. Feedback wanted!
Yosef Chaim Brenner, one of the top Hebrew writers of a century ago, was born in Russia in 1881. He made aliyah in 1909, and settled in Yafo – where Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook was the Chief Rabbi. Brenner was a legend for his fiery insistence on what he believed to be truth, and he was viciously anti-religious.
Brenner wrote a particularly strong article in 1911, "על חזיון השמד: On Predictions of Assimilation", in which he declared that Jews should stop bemoaning Jewish conversion to other religions. Mocking Jewish antipathy toward Christianity, he wrote, "The New Testament is also our book, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh… [I say that] a Jew can be a good Jew, devoted to his nation with his entire heart and soul, and not fear this legend as some form of treif, but rather relate to it with religious fervour like the non-Jew Leonardo daVinci in his day."[1]
Yosef Chaim Brenner also had no great respect for his city's Chief Rabbi. Brenner was once brought to seudah shlishit at the home of Rav Kook, and he walked out, insisting he would never return. Once, when seated with S.Y. Agnon and others, they went to daven minchah with Rav Kook, but Brenner refused. There are reports that toward the end of his life he changed his mind, but in his writing we find that he dismissed Rav Kook's religious beliefs as handmaidens to clerical ambition, his ideas as illogical and confused, and his writing style as antiquated and opaque.[2]
And yet! Yehoshua Radler Feldman, a Hebrew novelist of the day,[3] wrote that Rav Kook said the following about Brenner: "Brenner had a great soul; he was tossed about by great spiritual suffering… Once I met with Chaim Nachman Bialik in Yaarot haKarmel, and he told me that Brenner burned entirely with a fire of love for Israel, and he burned with the pain of Israel."[4]
How do we understand Rav Kook's apparent appreciation for Brenner? I think we need to examine Rav Kook's optimistic view of human culture.
1: Culture expresses Divine Light
To Rav Kook, "culture" refers to the unique way an individual human being expresses herself, or a community expresses itself. [5] It includes art and literature and music. It includes the breadth of society, from urban design to political structure to religion. Our civilization is culture. But most important, Rav Kook invoked a well-known midrash to explain what we are doing when we express ourselves in culture. This midrash says that like a builder working from plans, "Gd looked in the Torah and created the world.[6]"
In other words: The world – which includes earth, sea and sky, beast and bird and human being – expresses Gd's Torah. And Rav Kook extrapolated from this idea to teach that all we produce as human beings also expresses Torah.[7] Everything – our laws and ethics, our science and art, our culture – reveals Gd's will.[8]
Rav Kook expressed this idea in numerous ways.
· In his introduction to Shir haShirim, he wrote, "Literature, painting and sculpture aim to bring to realization all the spirtual concepts impressed deep in the human soul.[9]"
· The Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design was established by Dr. Boris Schatz in Jerusalem in 1906. Two years later, Rav Kook wrote Dr. Schatz a letter of passionate encouragement, and guidance.[10] He said, "It is heartwarming and exciting to see our talented brethren, geniuses of beauty and art, finding a proper place… And a spirit from Heaven has carried them to Jerusalem, to beautify our holy city." As he wrote, this art institute would "open sensitivity to beauty and purity" for all of us.
· And perhaps most famously, Rav Kook said that when he lived in London, he would visit the National Gallery, and he most loved the work of Rembrandt. He said, "When G-d created the light [on the first day], it was so strong and luminous that it was possible to see from one end of the world to the other… From time to time there are great men whom G-d blesses with a vision of that hidden light. I believe that Rembrandt was one of them, and the light in his paintings is that light which G-d created….[11]"
To Rav Kook, everything we create spreads beauty, and spreads enlightenment, channelling that Divine light which created us.[12]
2: You can corrupt the light
I find this reverent view of culture a powerful idea, one that lends itself to a remarkable respect for all humanity and its varied cultures. But there is a glaring problem, perhaps best expressed with a set of names from recent headlines: Lauer. Keillor. Spacey. Rose. Weinstein. Franken. Zahn. How seriously can we take the idea that culture expresses Divine light, when the most successful creators of contemporary culture seem to express the opposite?[13]
And the problem isn't just in music or literature or cinema – we said before that Religion is also culture, and we have seen our own Spaceys and Keillors among our religious leaders. How seriously can we take the idea that culture expresses Divine light, when even Religion can be corrupt?
Here we need to invoke a second idea from Rav Kook: That it is possible to corrupt the Divine light we express, to produce a vulgar form of culture. That was his understanding of Greek culture.[14] But Rav Kook had a solution: This is why we have halachah, to shape our expression of that light. Halachah places boundaries and implements structure for that cultural expression.
In his letter to the Bezalel Academy, Rav Kook wrote that every valuable trait, even justice and wisdom, must be kept within bounds; as Kohelet says, "Do not be too much of a tzaddik and do not make yourself too wise." In the same way, we must be careful in art and culture "to avoid intoxication and overreach.[15]" Or to use the terminology of Nietzsche, we must be Apollo, not Dionysus, manifesting an ordered beauty rather than an inebriated pursuit of desire.[16] We express ourselves, and the light within us, and with attention to these limits we will avoid pathetic vulgarity, and instead attain gorgeous radiance.
3: Appreciation of Our Potential
So Rav Kook had two ideas: That our culture expresses Divine light, and that this expression is vulnerable to corruption and must be directed. But he had a third idea, and this may be what drove his approach to Yosef Chaim Brenner: That even if someone has yet to express Divine light purely, we look at them as being on the path to redemption and purification.[17]
It's no surprise, then, that Rav Kook valued Brenner's creative work even if the author's poison pen was sometimes directed at him, and at the Jewish religion. That fiery soul, that commitment to the Jewish people, was the Divine Light Rav Kook saw, the Torah that had guided the creation of the world, and Rav Kook optimistically expected it would eventually elevate Brenner's work. Perhaps it would have, but Brenner was murdered in Arab riots in 1921.
I should note that I don't think Rav Kook would offer the same respect to the people I mentioned before, who stand accused of harassment and abuse; where there is a vulnerable victim, one dare not display admiration for the corrupt. But with Brenner, Rav Kook saw fit to emphasize his strengths.
This Shabbos we celebrate seventy years of Israeli culture. Yaacov Agam. Nachum Gutman. S.Y. Agnon. Anna Ticho. Naomi Shemer. Daniel Barenboim. Dana International. Uri Zohar. Matti Friedman. In the work of some of them, the light of Gd is obvious. In some, like Brenner, we can see their altruism even if we are turned off by their application of it. And in some, frankly, it's hard to see the Divine light at all. But Rav Kook promises us that it is there, and orders us to respect it.
But this is about more than respect for others; once we recognize the power of the culture we produce, we must also acknowledge the dramatic influence of the culture we absorb. To view art is to bond with the artist, to invite the creator into my living room and bedroom, into my mind and heart - and it will shape my own expression of Divine light. May we choose our influences wisely.
This morning,[18] Esav offered to Yaakov, "Let's travel together." Yaakov declined. Esav said, "Let me send some of my people with you," but Yaakov denied him that as well. Instead, Yaakov said, "I'll go on at my own pace, and we'll meet up in Seir," Esav's residence. But that meeting doesn't happen in chumash; what kind of game was Yaakov playing?
Some write that Yaakov never meant to meet up with Esav. Others say he meant to meet Esav at Seir, but it didn't work out. But a midrash[19] takes it differently: Yaakov intends to meet Esav at Seir, in the time of Mashiach. Right then, at Yaakov's moment in history, Esav's culture was not a good influence; his expression of Divine light was too tainted. But Yaakov anticipates the day when Esav's light will shine forth as well, and on that day, envisioned with such ardor by Rav Kook, אבוא אל אדוני שעירה, Yaakov and Esav will finally be prepared to join together.[20]
[1] http://benyehuda.org/brenner/baaretz_059.html
[2] Ibid. pp. 38-40. I may grant him the opaque.
[3] also known as R' Binyamin
[4] Yonatan Meir, תשוקתן של הנשמות אל השכינה, pg. 42 https://www.academia.edu/945983/_Longing_of_Souls_for_the_Shekina_Relations_Between_Rabbi_Kook_Zeitlin_and_Brenner_The_Path_of_the_Spirit_The_Eliezer_Schweid_Jubilee_Volume_Jerusalem_Studies_in_Jewish_Thought_Volume_XIX_ed._Yehoyada_Amir_Jerusalem_Department_of_Jewish_Thought_and_The_Mandel_Institute_of_Jewish_Studies_The_Hebrew_University_of_Jerusalem_The_Van_Leer_Jerusalem_Institute_2005_2_pp._771-818_Hebrew_
[5] See R' Yehudah Mirsky, Towards Rav Kook's Theology of Culture, and esp. pp. 110-112
[6] Bereishit Rabbah 1:1
[7] R' A. Yehoshua Zuckerman, The World of Rav Kook's Thought, pg. 189
[8] Arpilei Tohar 2; Orot haKodesh II 289; cited in Benjamin Ish-Shalom, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Jewish Spirituality pp. 182-183
[9] Mirsky, pg 113
[10] Igrot haRa"ayah I 158, found at http://www.atid.org/resources/art/igrot1.pdf
[11] Jewish Chronicle, 9 September 1935, cited in Dr. Yehuda Gelman, The World of Rav Kook's Thought pg. 206
[12] Zuckerman pp. 190-191, and the Mirsky article
[13] Rabbi Dr. Yehudah Mirsky has expressed doubts about Rav Kook's ideas about culture, too, and his challenges point to our problem as well. He has written, "His an extremely idealistic conception of culture, both in that [his version of] culture enacts ideas, and in that those who participate in it are assumed to be driven by noble motives… Along these lines, there is almost no sense in his writings that culture is a commercial enterprise, that people do it to make money." (Mirsky, pp. 133-134)
[14] Moadei haRa"ayah pg. 193, cited in Zuckerman p. 192-193
[16] Dr. Yehuda Gelman, The World of Rav Kook's Thought pp. 195-197
[17] See, for example, much of Orot haTeshuvah
[18] Bereishit 33
[19] Bereishis Rabbah 78:14
[20] See also Rav Kook's vision of art in https://books.google.ca/books?id=gY125uCDkp8C&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33, more on the R' Kook-Brenner connection in https://books.google.ca/books?id=yE1IBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA380&lpg=PA380 and http://www.ravkook.net/rav-kook.html, and Brenner's critique of Rav Kook in https://books.google.ca/books?id=TB_BAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89. And R' Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook and the Brenner Affair at https://doi.org/10.1353/sho.2017.0013 (available on Muse). And bio of Brenner at https://books.google.ca/books?id=yE1IBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA200&lpg=PA200. And Part 8 of http://mizrachi.org/category/rav-kook-and-art/.
Labels: Derashah, Judaism: Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak haKohen Kook
Weinstein, Mayim Bialik and the Perils of Religious Instruction
I wrote the following for my Beit Midrash's weekly email, and on reflection I'd like to get feedback from a broader population, so I'm reproducing it here:
Two weeks ago, journalists revealed that Harvey Weinstein, a very influential Hollywood film producer, stands accused of many acts of sexual harassment and assault. The story has been given top coverage on every major news website.
Commenting on Hollywood's abusive culture, Orthodox Jewish actress Mayim Bialik wrote an apparently well-intentioned essay for the New York Times last week, describing her own experiences. Toward the end of the article, she stated, "I still make choices every day as a 41-year-old actress that I think of as self-protecting and wise. I have decided that my sexual self is best reserved for private situations with those I am most intimate with. I dress modestly. I don't act flirtatiously with men as a policy."
Ms. Bialik also wrote very clearly, "Nothing — absolutely nothing — excuses men for assaulting or abusing women." Nonetheless, she has been attacked by numerous victims of sexual abuse, who claim that she is blaming the victim. Ms. Bialik's message of 'I help protect myself by acting modestly' is understood as alleging that victims must not have acted modestly.
This is not what Ms. Bialik meant, as she has responded. However, I think the fact that people read her comments this way is important. As the Talmud (Bava Metzia 58b) explains, we are guilty of ona'at devarim [verbal abuse] if we convey to sufferers that they are responsible for their own pain, even if we don't mean that.
I think if we are to be honest, we must admit that ideas expressed in Torah can be seen as blaming the victims. The Talmud Yerushalmi (Sanhedrin 2:6) associates Dinah's rape with the fact that she mixed among the people of Shechem. A well-known midrash (Psikta Zutrita to Shemot 2:12) links the rape of Shlomit bat Divri to her friendliness toward an Egyptian slavedriver. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 21a) states that the sages reacted to the rape of Tamar, daughter of King David, by prohibiting seclusion of men with unmarried women. To my mind, these comments of our sages are meant to educate about hazards, not to claim that victims of abuse must have put themselves at risk. But if they are cited without context, or to a sensitive audience, or without complete explanation, these sources come across as indictments of rape victims.
We do need to learn and teach Torah, and halachic sexuality is certainly worth promoting. At the same time, we who learn/teach these texts are obligated to be very careful with our words. As the Talmud (Sanhedrin 107a) quotes King David, "One who commits adultery receives capital punishment, but he enters the next world. One who causes another person to blanch [in shame] in public has no share in the next world." May we learn from the events of the past two weeks; when addressing sensitive matters, even [or especially] when quoting Torah, let us choose our words with extra care.
Labels: General: Sexual mores, Judaism: Speech, Judaism: Torah as weapon
The Three Faces of Satan (Derashah, Yom Kippur 5778)
Critiques welcome - especially before Yom Kippur!
Like many Jewish children growing up in North America in the 1980's, my only real exposure to Satan was via Dana Carvey's Church Lady on Saturday Night Live. To me, Satan was a Christian concept, a red-skinned fellow with horns, a goatee, a tail, hooves and a pitchfork. You might read about his adventures in Milton's Paradise Lost.
In truth, Judaism does describe a Satan, but for most of the year we downplay it, barely mentioning it anywhere.[1] That is – until we arrive at Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. The Yamim Noraim seem to be the season for acknowledging Satan's influence:
· Why don't we recite the monthly Birkat HaChodesh blessing in shul in advance of Rosh Chodesh Tishrei? Some say it's to avoid alerting Satan that Rosh HaShanah is coming.[2]
· Why do we stop blowing shofar one day short of Rosh HaShanah? According to some, it's to confuse Satan.[3]
· Why does the tokeia blow shofar out of the right side of his mouth on Rosh HaShanah? To combat Satan, who is described in Tanach as attacking on our right side.[4] Why do we blow shofar before musaf? To confuse Satan with multiple sets of shofar blasts.[5] And in some communities a Teruah Gedolah is sounded at the end of davening – you guessed it, to addle Satan.[6]
· It's not just Rosh HaShanah, either; our liturgy for Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur mentions Satan, as the chazan pleads with Gd ותגער בשטן לבל ישטינני, to obstruct Satan lest it act against our prayers.
· And who could forget the שעיר לעזאזל, the scapegoat which is at the heart of the Yom Kippur Avodah, which some interpret as associated with Satan?[7]
Clearly we have heightened concern for Satan at this time of year. Why?
First, we need to know what Satan actually is.
The Talmud[8] states, "הוא שטן הוא יצר הרע הוא מלאך המות" – "Satan is the Yetzer HaRa, and both of them are the Malach haMavet/Angel of Death."
· I know what the Malach haMavet does – it kills a person's body, removing the soul.
· I know what the Yetzer HaRa does – it kills a person's actions, by tempting us to sin.
· But what is Satan? What does Satan do?
A personal Satan appears in three stories in Tanach. If we look briefly at each of them, we will soon see a common thread which will first show us what Satan does, and then, second, answer the question of why Satan is so important at this time of year.
One story involves Dovid haMelech/King David.[9] After putting down a rebellion, Dovid haMelech initiated a military census and a mandatory draft. The Talmud[10] is aghast; how could Dovid haMelech make this basic mistake? Schoolchildren know we are not allowed to count individuals![11] But as Tanach records, ויעמוד שטן על ישראל ויסת את דוד למנות את ישראל. Satan arose and persuaded Dovid to count Israel. Satan told Dovid haMelech, "You have no allies anymore. They deserted you to follow one rebel, and they will desert you again. You cannot lead this nation." And so Dovid created a military census and a draft.
The second story involves Iyov/Job. The celestial malachim are gathered before Gd, when Satan crashes the party[12] and declares before Gd, "Business is good! I can go wherever I want, and I am welcomed with open arms.[13]" Gd responds by defending the value of humanity, identifying a single champion, Iyov, who is pure in his relationship with Gd. To which Satan responds, "There are no pure human beings; Iyov is as venal and selfish as the rest of them. Take away his wealth, and he'll blaspheme like everyone else." This, of course, leads to the great test of humanity that is the Book of Iyov.
The third story involves Yehoshua, the Kohen Gadol at the beginning of the second Beit haMikdash. The navi Zecharyah experiences a prophetic vision of this high priest standing before Gd, wearing stained clothing, and Satan stands on Yehoshua's right, לשטנו, to block him. As Rashi and Malbim explain, Satan is there to accuse Yehoshua and his family of wickedness, to allege that Yehoshua is unworthy of leading the Jews who have returned to Israel.
Three stories, three faces of Satan, with one thread:
· Dovid! You are not a legitimate king.
· Iyov! You are not a legitimate tzadik.
· Yehoshua! You are not a legitimate kohen gadol.
The word "Satan" means obstruction, and the creature lives up to his name. The Malach haMavet kills the body. The Yetzer HaRa kills the deeds. But Satan is the most sinister of all – by convincing us of our own worthlessness, Satan kills our souls. He robs us of faith in ourselves, he robs us of our sense that we are valuable.
At the moment of Creation, Gd formed a celestial entity[14] whose ongoing role is to challenge us by telling us what we can't do, to stand on our right side, our best side in the language of Tanach, and to charge, "Is that the best you can do? You can't cut it. You should just give up."[15]
Undermining self-esteem may not seem that frightening, more like some watered-down, white-collar version of a devil-lite, but don't kid yourself; this work of Satan is a global threat. Read what psychologists and sociologists say about 21st century humanity - about rates of suicide and depression among individuals, about entire societies that have imploded under the weight of insecurity and have consequently devolved into racism, xenophobia and death-worship. It all comes down to the same cause: this Satan is wreaking havoc on the lives of people and polities as it preaches its gospel of "You can't!"
So now we know what Satan does. And to go back to our original question, at this time of year we emphasize Satan because we understand the existential spiritual threat he poses on our Day of Judgment and Day of Atonement:
· As I listen to shofar on Rosh HaShanah, as I examine myself during the ten days of repentance, as I fast all day on Yom Kippur, I am not tempted by the yetzer hara to repeat my stupidities of the past year. This week, I have had no desire to hurt other people, to take Shabbos or kashrus lightly, to skip minyan.
· But Satan telling me I can't do any better, I can't grow, I can't change, I will always be a person of anger, I will always be a person of weakness, I will always be a person of inconsistency, I will always be too tired or too stupid or too easily intimidated or too feckless – that's the threat at this time of year. Hashem promises to accept us back when we return,[16] and to purify us on Yom Kippur[17] – but am I going to take that step when Satan stands on my right side, arguing that I can't return?
· Indeed, the Talmud (Chagigah 15a) tells the tragic story of Elisha ben Avuyah, a sage who was lured away from Judaism by Greek theories and who became known as Acher, "the other". He wanted to come back, but thought he had heard a Divine voice say "Return wayward children – except for Acher." Acher – you can't! You have no value! And so he never returned.[18]
But if we look back at those three stories in Tanach, then we will also recognize that Satan can be defeated, so long as we know our own value – not some artificially inflated sense of pride that makes us feel better, but our true value:
· Yehoshua Kohen Gadol is challenged by Satan and wrapped in filthy garb, but Gd declares, יגער ד' בך השטן! Yehoshua's valuable merit wins the day. Gd rebukes Satan, and orders the malachim to give Yehoshua pure, clean clothing, befitting his righteousness.
· Iyov comes under the most furious attack, and he is pushed almost to the breaking point – but he doesn't break, he wins his family back,[19] and he is identified by Gd at the end as the righteous victor in that terrible battle.
· Dovid fell prey to insecurity, and carried out a census – but the tragic story ends with Dovid buying a threshing floor and building a mizbeiach for Gd there. Out of Satan's obstruction, we gain the future site of the Beit haMikdash.
We can win – just as we did throughout Tanach. So even though on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur we ask Gd, "ותגער בשטן לבל ישטינני, Don't let Satan attack us," the truth is that it's in our hands.
· We can set our goals in the heavens.
· We can get our tempers under control, and we can start making people smile.
· We can learn a masechta of gemara, or multiple masechtot. We can learn Hebrew. We can learn how to daven.
· We can become people of mercy and benevolence, and stop undermining and putting down people around us to make ourselves greater.
· We can take care of our parents. We can take care of our children. We can take care of our own health.
· We can give tzedakah and we can raise tzedakah, for causes from which we benefit personally and for causes which benefit others.
· We can break off destructive relationships, and establish the foundations of productive ones.
· We can make that most unhumble commitment in Neilah שלא אחטא עוד, that we will never sin again!
We can be גוער בשטן. Satan is easily confused by resistance, and he has no teeth – Yehoshua and Iyov and Dovid kicked them in long ago! We just need to stop listening to him, and to recognize the value in ourselves that Satan tries to deny.[20]
Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski tells the following story regarding a patient of his, a woman named Sybil:[21]
Sybil was admitted for heroin addiction. She was a registered nurse who had not worked for six years because of her addiction. The reason she came for help was that she had used up all her veins and had none left for injecting heroin.
In the first interview, I noticed that she was wearing a locket. "Is that real gold?" I asked. When she answered in the affirmative, I asked, "How come you still have it and did not sell it to get heroin?"
"I'll never sell this," she said. "This was my mother's."
"Let me see it, please," I said. Sybil handed me the locket, and I took the scissors lying on the desk and made as though I was going to scratch the locket.
"What are you doing?" Sybil said.
I said, "Don't get upset. I'm just going to scratch it up a bit."
"But that's mine," Sybil said.
"I promise I'll give it back to you," I said.
"But I don't want it scratched up," Sybil said. "It is beautiful and very valuable to me."
I said, "So, if something is beautiful and very valuable, you don't let it get damaged, right?" I took Sybil's arms, which were marked by the unsightly tracks and scars of abscesses. "Can you read what that says?" I asked. "It says, 'I am not beautiful. I am not valuable.'"
Tearfully, Sybil said, "I never thought I was any good."
Sybil recovered from her drug addiction and became very active in helping other nurses with drug problems. She discovered that she had a desire to help others. Now Sybil knew who she was.
The Malach haMavet and the Yetzer HaRa are small fry; they go after our bodies and our actions. The true enemy, unmasked at this time of year, is Satan, enemy of our souls. But like Sybil, we know who we are, and we know we are valuable. May we, in our davening, capitalize on that knowledge and use it to propel us to unprecedented heights in the year ahead, and may our newfound commitment put Gd in the happy position of being justified in awarding us a גמר חתימה טובה.
[1] A notable exception: our daily prayer to Gd not to let the שטן המשחית harm our actions
[2] I thought it was בכסה, the overshadowing of Rosh Chodesh by Rosh HaShanah, but Taamei haMinhagim 691 co-opts that idea as part of confusing Satan.
[3] Taamei haMinhagim 693, Mishneh Berurah 581:24; note the other approach of distinguishing between customary shofar blowing and the actual mitzvah.
[4] Mishneh Berurah 585:7
[5] Rosh HaShanah 16b
[7] See Maharam Rutenberg 4:513, although I must admit some reticence re: linking Samael with Satan
[8] Bava Batra 16a
[9] Shemuel II 24 and Divrei haYamim I 21:1; I am taking Malbim's read. Somewhat differently, Abarbanel to Shemuel II 24's suggestions include the idea that Dovid feared his army was too small
[10] Berachot 62b
[11] Indeed, Shaul specifically avoided the census by using בזק and טלאים to count troops in Shemuel I
[12] Moreh Nevuchim 3:22
[13] Daat Mikra Iyov pg. 11
[14] Abarbanel to Shemuel II 24 suggests that it is really Gd talking, but the attack is identified as השטנה - obstruction
[15] Ditto Satan attempting to dissuade Avraham from the Akeidah, and shaking the confidence of Sarah as well as the Jews waiting for Moshe to return from Har Sinai. Even Bilam's encounter with a malach which is לשטן לו is consistent, although that malach was on our side.
[16] Devarim 30
[17] Vayikra 16:30
[18] Rambam (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah 2:4) writes that teshuvah requires me to say, "I am someone else, not the person who committed those deeds." But how will I say that if I believe I can't?
[19] A pshat read of Iyov 42:10
[20] And this may be the secret behind those rituals we reviewed earlier, which confuse Satan.
· Some of those rituals take the route of lying low. If I don't play up my desire to change, if I don't announce that Rosh Chodesh Tishrei is coming, if I stop blowing shofar for a day, then the voice of "You can't" won't be awakened until it's too late.
· But more powerfully I can also steamroll my Satan directly, because like Dovid, Iyov and Yehoshua Kohen Gadol, I know what my value is, I know Satan is wrong, I know I am capable of teshuvah. So I can channel my inner New Yorker, interrupting Satan, drowning him out with the shofar. If he wants to stand on my right, then that's where I will blow shofar. If he wants to shout against the shofar, I'm going to blow it before musaf, I'm going to blow it during musaf, I'm going to blow it after musaf, as long as he keeps talking, to proclaim that I am capable, that I can change.
[21] Without a Job, Who am I? pg. 36
Labels: Calendar: Yamim Noraim (Rosh HaShanah/Yom Kippur), Derashah, Judaism: Satan
Cracking the Cold (Derashah for Rosh HaShanah 5778)
Yes, I've neglected this blog, but here is my current draft of a Rosh HaShanah derashah. Please let me know what you think.
Over a period of 16 years, from 1833 to 1849, Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote a long poem in memory of his beloved friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. It's called "In Memoriam A.H.H.[1]". The best-known line from the poem is probably, "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." But I want to focus on a different passage today. In describing his own faith in the face of this bereavement, Tennyson wrote:
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last—far off—at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.[2]
Tennyson describes his cry as that of an infant; he hears the voice of a baby in the emotions of a grown, worldly, sophisticated man grieving for his friend. Keep that image in mind, please, as we look at a very odd element of the mitzvah of shofar.
Shofar is a surprisingly vague mitzvah; the Torah describes the first day of the seventh month as יום תרועה, a day for trumpeting, but it doesn't define what exactly a teruah is. How do we know what sound to make? The Talmud[3] deduces the nature of the shofar's teruah based on the crying of a particular woman in Tanach.
More: We blow 100 shofar blasts each day of Rosh HaShanah, even though 60 should cover all of the possible permutations of sounds. Why 100? Tosafot[4] quotes the 10th century sage, Rabbi Natan baal ha'Aruch, explaining that we want to match the cries of that same woman in Tanach. She cried 99 or 100 times, depending on your version of this idea, and we cry as she did.
So there you have it. How do we know that teruah is a crying sound? That crying woman in Tanach. Why do we blow 100 blasts? Same woman in Tanach. And my problem is this: That woman in Tanach ranks as one of the coldest, most heartless human beings in Jewish history. That woman was the mother of a Canaanite general named Sisera.
Go back in time about 3200 years. After the Jews left Egypt and entered Canaan, Yehoshua led them for 28 years. After he died, we were governed by a series of Shoftim/Judges for centuries, during an up-and-down period in which we were often under the thumb of local tribes. About 120 years into this period, the Canaanites come to dominate us; they have iron, horse-drawn chariots, and they force us up into the mountains. Their lead general is a man named Sisera.
To make a long story short, our shofet at the time is a woman named Devorah, and she leads us in rebellion against Canaan. Miraculously, the Canaanite chariots are routed. The soldiers flee east, to go home; their general, Sisera, deserts and heads west, looking for shelter. He is intercepted by a woman named Yael, who kills him. Devorah composes a poem about the victory, and at the end of the poem she describes the scene back at Canaanite headquarters, where Sisera's mother anxiously awaits her son's return. To quote:[5]
"At the window, the mother of Sisera gazes out and cries at an ornately decorated window. She cries, 'Why is his chariot delayed in coming? Why are the hoofbeats of his chariots late?' The wise noblewomen answer her, and she also gives this statement to herself, 'Have they not found and distributed spoils, a womb, two wombs to every man, spoils of dyed [fabric] for Sisera, spoils of dyed embroidery, dyed embroidery around the neck of the despoiler?'"
This is the mother of Sisera – a woman who comforts herself with the thought that her son is assaulting women and stealing spoils. And her language – a womb, two wombs to every man – it's vulgar, obscene! How grotesque! What a mockery of maternity! Sisera's mother may have cried for her son, but why in the world would I want to model my shofar on Rosh HaShanah on the grief of the most abominably cold-hearted human being imaginable?!
I'm not the only one with this question. Rav Eliyahu Ki-Tov asked this question in Sefer haTodaah, and decided that we are not looking at her villany, but at our own goodness. We are contrasting ourselves with Sisera's mother. She wept with cruelty; we weep with humanity. There is a logic to this, certainly.
Another answer is to look past her cold villainy, and see her as a bereaved mother. As Rabbi Aaron Goldscheider wrote in a column on the OU website last year,[6] "[S]o great is the grief of any parent for the loss of a child, that we all are left completely bereft. The universality and commonality of suffering over the loss of a child transcends names and identities." Rabbi Goldscheider knows what he is talking about; he lost a child. And I accept his point. But I don't understand – do we really need to demonstrate our compassion for a bereaved parent by invoking this particular bereaved parent? Do we not have enough bereaved parents in our history, on whom shofar could have been modeled?[7]
I would suggest that the answer is not to ignore her villainy, but to embrace it, to understand that her lack of a heart is precisely the point. We invoke her because she is so unsympathetically heartless. This merciless human being, who reassures herself that all is well by imagining her son viciously violating prisoners – even she can crack. And that unadorned cracking of the cold, yielding sincere emotion below, is what matters in shofar.
Rav Yehudah Amital[8] also emphasized the sincere cry, in an essay regarding Akeidat Yitzchak. He quoted a manuscript of the midrashic Avot d'Rabbi Natan[9] which describes the fateful scene on the mountain. In contrast to the classic image of the stoic father and son, pure in their devotion to Gd, in this version Avraham says to himself, "I am old, and he is young, perhaps Yitzchak could escape!" And Yitzchak says to himself, "Who will save me from my father? I have no aid other than Hashem!" Rav Amital explained, Avraham was no malach, and Yitzchak was no seraph; neither of them wanted to go through with this, and they were looking for something, pleading with Hashem, to prevent Yitzchak's death. They cracked - and as we say in our Selichot, Hashem answered Avraham. It's true that Hashem never wanted Yitzchak to die, but even had Hashem wanted Yitzchak to die, He would have halted the akeidah because of Avraham's plea for Yitzchak's life – because the most valuable prayer to Hashem is that simple, sincere cry, like that of Avraham, for that which we love the most.
This is what shofar is about – expressing the sincere cry. Returning to the beginning, I think this is what Tennyson described in his own grief for his beloved friend: "An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light: And with no language but a cry." Simple. Sincere. Lacking artifice and style, and all the more beautiful for it. Even Sisera's mother, at her moment of crisis, releases this pure voice from inside of her.
We may not like to admit it, but we nurture within ourselves the seeds of the cold brutality of Sisera's mother - and for good reason. A soul open to every emotion, a heart with strings that can be plucked by every circumstance, would drown in a sea of passion. We would suffer depression at every hurricane and shooting and car accident and famine. We would ride a roller coaster of joy with every birth and marriage and success we saw on Facebook or Linkedin. We would spend our last pennies on helping people around the world in need. We would overload in reaction to every news headline and private conversation, and we would be left gasping for air, for emotional space, for survival.
So we develop a necessary shell, but we pay a price in doing it. I become much more at ease snapping my fingers to an upbeat tune than contemplating loss. I become more comfortable reading a book of intellectual essays about Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur than intensely contemplating what I did for the past year, and why I did it. I would rather go home to a delicious lunch than remain here asking, a la Tennyson, whether spring will truly follow winter for me, for my family, for my friends.
But on Rosh HaShanah, with the shofar, we are meant to penetrate to just those fears that inhabit the pit of our stomach. To imagine what it would mean to lose that which we love and treasure more than anything on earth – and to cry like Tennyson's infant. Toward that end we summon the image of the coldest, crudest human being imaginable, Sisera's awful mother, cracking, and we know that if she can, then so can we. And our cry, at the moment when our cold is cracked, is gorgeous in its purity, in its simplicity, in its sincerity.
Along the same lines, the Talmud Yerushalmi[10] says we blow an animal horn because our own cry on Rosh HaShanah is that of an animal. The shofar has no words, only an animal, or perhaps infantile, sound that emerges with our breath, from our core. May we crack, and find that cry inside of ourselves this morning, for just a little while. May we call out to Hashem sincerely, for the sake of our parents, our siblings, our spouses, our friends, our children. And may Hashem respond to us, as HaShem responded to Avraham, with a verdict for a חתימה טובה, to be inscribed and sealed for a year of berachah and shalom.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Memoriam_A.H.H.
[2] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45341/in-memoriam-a-h-h-obiit-mdcccxxxiii-54
[3] Rosh HaShanah 33b-34a
[5] End of Shoftim 5
[6] https://www.ou.org/holidays/rosh-hashanah/shofar-mothers-cry/
[7] I.e. Sarah and Yaakov, when they believe their children dead. Of course, there are other answers, such as noting that R' Akiva was her descendant, and invoking mystical ideas. Rav Soloveitchik has a particularly moving idea found in Pninei haRav pg. 158 and "Before Hashem you will be purified" pg. 10. See http://www.yna.edu/emails/newsletter/5771/Haazeinu/03_Shofar-_Recognizing_the_Emes-1.doc)
[8] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fN2QQl3BbWsJ:asif.co.il/download/kitvey-et/alon-shvot-bog/alon-shv-bo-16/bn15_sheyare.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca and http://www.etzion.org.il/he/06-%D7%95%D7%98%D7%94%D7%A8-%D7%9C%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%95-%D7%9C%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%93%D7%9A-%D7%91%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%AA
[9] Cited in Torah Sheleimah Bereishit 22 #92
[10] Yerushalmi Taanit 2:1
Labels: Calendar: Yamim Noraim (Rosh HaShanah/Yom Kippur), Derashah, Judaism: Tefilah (prayer)
Rav Kook and the Artists of Jaffa (Derashah Vayish...
Weinstein, Mayim Bialik and the Perils of Religiou...
The Three Faces of Satan (Derashah, Yom Kippur 577...
Cracking the Cold (Derashah for Rosh HaShanah 5778...


text:
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1 edition of Chapters in the life of Truro found in the catalog.
Published 2004 by EHP in Truro .
Statement compiled by Ronald E. Tonkin.
Contributions Tonkin, Ronald E.
Pagination [2],33p. ;
About Blackbird House. With "incantatory prose" that "sweeps over the reader like a dream," (Philadelphia Inquirer), Hoffman follows her celebrated bestseller The Probable Future, with an evocative work that traces the lives of the various occupants of an old Massachusetts house over a span of two hundred a rare and gorgeous departure, beloved novelist Alice Hoffman . Home Read the Big Book and Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions A co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous tells how members recover and how the society functions. Document Floor plan and pictures of the Truro property Document Letter re preparing Truro house for sale Document Sales brochure for the Truro house. Huge guide to Truro: Truro Events, Tourist Info, Club Nights, Gigs, Theatre, Restaurants, Hotels, Shopping, Travel and more. The biggest online guide to Truro.
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Research and the school counselor
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By the United States in Congress assembled, January 14, 1784
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Chapters in the life of Truro Download PDF EPUB FB2
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Here you can find all the Chapters Indigo stores in Cornwall. To access the details of the store (location, opening hours, Chapters Indigo online and. I have spoken briefly about collecting in Chapters 3B.7, 4.D, and 6.A, and in Chapter 5 mentioned Scott's Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue as a profoundly influential book in my life.
But collecting is such an important part of who I am that I wanted to give it a short chapter of its own. This book is a reproduction of an important historical work.
Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy.
In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our : Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton. Truro (/ ˈ t r ʊər oʊ /; Cornish: Truru) is a city and civil parish in Cornwall, England, UK.
It is Cornwall's county town and only city, as well as being its centre for administration, leisure and retail. Its population was recorded as 18, in the census. People from Truro are known as Truronians. Truro grew as a centre of trade from its port and then as a stannary town for the tin OS grid reference: SW NovelTea Bookstore Cafe, Truro: See unbiased reviews of NovelTea Bookstore Cafe, rated of 5 on Tripadvisor and ranked #7 of 84 restaurants in Truro/5().
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Find useful information, the address and the phone number of the local business you are looking for. by Cyrus J. Zachary. Add to Wishlist. Read an excerpt of this book. Sumerians: A History From by Henry Freeman. Add to Wishlist.
Read an excerpt of this book. World War 1: A History From by Henry Freeman. Add to Wishlist. Read an excerpt of this book. by Stephan Weaver. Add to Wishlist. Read an excerpt of this book. The Paperback of the Demelza: A Novel of Cornwall, by Winston Graham at Barnes & Noble. FREE Shipping on $35 or /5(14).
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Coles currently serves as Indigo's brand for small-scale bookstores in locations such as shopping malls. Indigo is now Canada's largest purveyor of ideas and inspirations to Location: Robie Street Truro NS, B2N 5N6.
Garth Greenwell's debut novel, What Belongs to You, which was on the long list for the National Book Award, is a story of love, lust, and loss, centered on an unnamed narrator, a gay American teacher in ess, Greenwell's follow-up novel, published last month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is narrated by that same teacher in Bulgaria, still.
This book tells a story about a killer I had never read about before. I gave the book 4 stars only because I am not the biggest fan of the story being told from the view of someone involved. Only because as a true crime reader I like to know facts and reading a story done in this fashion to me feels more like I'm reading fiction/5.
Its highly organised structure, over 25 chapters, looks at how all aspects of your life, mind and body can affect your condition. It is written in a very readable, inspirational style that motivates the reader.
The author shares many fascinating details of her own life and how she learned to deal with fibromyalgia/5(3). Book Stores in North Truro on See reviews, photos, directions, phone numbers and more for the best Book Stores in North Truro, MA.
Paul Lisicky's latest book, "Later: My Life at the Edge of the World," is a love song. And like any good love song, there is infatuation, disappointment, passion, heartbreak and ultimately, hope.
"Later" is a memoir, a coming of age tale that happens in chapters laid out like essays. Each could stand alone. Taken together they tell a story about becoming, changing. Summary. Chap titled "The Boyette," covers Olive Byrne's college experience up to meeting William Moulton Marston her senior year.
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Beston's "Fo'castle," the 20x16 beach cottage which served as the setting for the book The Outermost House, was built in Author: Henry Beston.
Below is a list of Independent Book stores located in Nova Scotia. Please support local. At the bottom, I added a travelling book store I discovered at HalCon If there is no link, there is no website.
I included the address instead. Independent Book Stores Antigonish 5 cent to $1 Store: Antigonish Baintons Tannery. In a Cottage In a Wood falls into the latter category. This book may have been my extra book for a pound, but hindsight has me wishing I had picked up a different book.
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Stop by the library to pick one up and fill it with some great reading. Chapters on educational and prosocial media are combined to show the links between the two topics.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: python calling perl, file isn't created by Popen until read() Edit: Oops! I accidentally posted code that didn't match my question. I started writing this post before I was done experimenting, so I posted code from an intermediate point in my testing process. I've amended this question to reflect what I really meant to post by changing the code slightly.
The following Python code works as expected with one problem: unless I If verbose == False, the file produced by the Perl script is not created. Why do I have to call output.stdout.read() for the underlying Perl script to successfully create a file?
cmdStringList = ["perl","script.pl","arg1",...]

output = subprocess.Popen(cmdStringList,stdout=subprocess.PIPE)

if verbose:
    print output.stdout.read()

I didn't even realize anything was wrong until I tried to execute my Python script with verbose=False in a production environment. I did some google-fu to try to understand the behavior of Popen and subprocess, but I haven't come up with a reason for this behavior. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

A: You actually have the following code, right?
if verbose:
    outputRead = output.stdout.read()
    print outputRead

It's quite likely that the problem is that the child is blocked trying to write to STDOUT. Until you make some space in the pipe by reading from it, the child won't be able to finish writing to STDOUT and move on to where it creates the file to which you refer.
If you want to prevent the child from blocking without reading, redirect its stdout to nul (Windows) or /dev/null (elsewhere). This should work everywhere but Windows:
cmdStringList = ["sh","-c","\"$0\"" \"$@\" >/dev/null","perl","script.pl","arg1",...]

(Pardon any syntax errors. I don't know Python at all.)

A: You should keep reading a stream, otherwise the buffer may become full, then your perl process may get blocked. It has nothing to do with a specific language but the underyling operating system.
I encountered a similar problem when I use Java.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
Route 40 (https://rtforty.com/seeing-things-with-seth-grossman/)
Seeing Things With Seth Grossman
By Bill Sprouse | July 11, 2018
Elinor Comlay
Seth Grossman. (Photo taken for a Route 40 interview in 2016).
An interview with the Republican Nominee for Congress of the United States
For the last month Seth Grossman, who is an attorney and the nominee of a major party for Congress, has been getting a lot of press for comments he made to the effect that diversity was "crap" and "un-American."
Actually, not comments to that effect: Those were Seth's actual words. "The whole idea of diversity is a bunch of crap and un-American."
Seth also said that diversity was "an excuse by Democrats, communists and socialists, basically, to say that we're not all created equal—that some people, if somebody is lesser qualified, they will get a job anyway or they'll get into college anyway because of the tribe that they're with, what group, what box they fit into."
Those of us in the supposedly liberal media struggle to address comments like these, not because they're so edgy or surprising or anything but because they're so unsurprising and acceptable across large swaths of polite society we don't know what to do with ourselves.
Cambridge Analytica built a whole PR strategy around "race realism" on the theory that it was easier to tap racial resentment in a Facebook post than to explain how 400 years of colonialism and White supremacy never really ended, or to acknowledge that the people who created that "all-created-equal" idea owned other human beings, Africans, whom they did not regard as all that equal.
I called Seth a few weeks ago not to talk about diversity but to ask about a vile piece of agitprop that was posted on the Facebook page of Liberty & Prosperity, the discussion group where Seth was executive director before he left to run for Congress.
The post showed a picture of someone (supposedly George Soros) in an SS uniform, describing the supposed ecstasies that Soros experienced during his time as a Nazi paramilitary (Soros was never a Nazi paramilitary) while "rounding up Jews and confiscating their property" (Soros never rounded up Jews or confiscated their property).
"This man was making policy with Hillary Clinton. And some of you think Trump is dangerous. Wow," it said.
The post was later retracted (partially) and Seth, to his credit, said it was improper to label any Jew, let alone a child as Soros had been, a collaborator simply for having survived the Holocaust, but this attitude appeared to set him at odds with some of his fellow L&P'ers, who maintained that Soros was indeed a collaborator, "sub human" and "scum" even if that had been the wrong guy in their Facebook meme. But hey, diversity of ideas and all that.
I thought the post cast doubt on Seth's ability to tell fact from crude fiction, or at least suggested a willingness to entertain the violent fantasies of his political base if that's what made them happy, and I wanted to ask Seth about this, but the conversation devolved, predictably, into a set of impasses (Seth's word), where I'd ask some question Seth didn't seem to like, and he'd respond with some variation on the theme: It sounds like you don't need me. You know what you're going to write anyway.
What I think Seth meant was that he knew what I was going to write, or rather, he knew what he'd do if he didn't like it: call us "progressives" (his favorite putdown) label it "fake news" and move on.
But that's not really how this was supposed to work. We are biased creatures, but you don't get to imagine our biases for us. Transparency is a core principal.
I would not have imagined, for instance, that Seth would compare the plight of Paul Manafort, the millionaire lobbyist and former chairman of the Trump campaign, who is in prison, with the plight of Central American immigrants whose children are being stored in cages by the Federal government, but here's what Seth said when I asked him about the Trump administration policy of family-separation at the border:
"Whenever anyone breaks the law, you know, you go to jail. You go to jail and you have children, your children are separated from you. I'm sure Paul Manafort got separated from his children when he got arrested."
Paul Manafort was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy, money laundering and false statements, all felonies, unlike the Central American immigrants, who have not been indicted, and are being detained, indefinitely, on the presumption that they committed the misdemeanor crime of illegal entry.
But Manafort wasn't put in jail after the first rounds of indictments, unlike the migrants who were put in jails without due process at all. Manafort was only jailed after being indicted a third time, on charges of witness tampering and conspiracy to obstruct justice, after he got to appear, with a lawyer, before a judge who revoked his house arrest.
Even then, Manafort wasn't separated from his children, who are adults and can call him on the telephone, in the same way that Central American immigrants have been separated from their children, some of whom are babies, some of whom have already been lost effectively by the federal government.
So, no, I would not have thought them comparable situations, but I'm not running for Congress as the candidate of a major party that has lost its absolute mind.
Likewise, I did not expect to agree with Seth on the issue of diversity, which has generated so much controversy, so much of it helpful to Seth. But when I told Seth I understood his comments had to do with "equality of outcome" (quotas for hiring, admissions, etc.) rather than "equality of opportunity" (everyone gets a fair shake in God's green America), Seth said I had understood him correctly.
When I asked Seth if we actually had equal opportunity in America, Seth said no, and I agreed.
Here's what Seth said when I asked if we had equal opportunity in America:
"No. We never did. Newcomers were always kept out. The American genius is that people can overcome it."
"The best way to overcome discrimination," Seth continued, "is for disadvantaged people to do better work for less money until they are accepted, and that's what my grandfather did and that's what every wave of immigrants to America did because…when people see an opportunity to make money on the talent and skill and hard work of other people they will pay the money to get good work."
Astute readers will quibble that African-Americans are unlike other "waves of immigrants" (they were brought here in chattel slavery) or that "better work for less money" is not a solution to discrimination (of course it's the definition of discrimination), but Seth said within 50 years of the Civil War, the ills of slavery had largely been overcome (at least in the North).
"The mess you see today is not the result of slavery," Seth said. "The disadvantage you see now is something new created by Democrats in the 1960s."
In Seth's alternate history, the "Blacks" (his term) were doing great in the 1920s when 95% of them were Republicans (the Republican party of the 20s is unlike that of today). Then FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society came along and African-Americans became "conditioned" to see "see themselves as victims" and "depend on the government."
In fairness, Seth thinks the New Deal (and probably the Great Society) hurt white people too, but they escaped the clutches of the welfare state, an odd result, since the New Deal was devised primarily to solve the problem of White unemployment and helped some African-Americans, incidentally, despite lavish efforts to exclude them. Yet they were ensnared disproportionately. Why?
I didn't get to ask, but it doesn't really matter. To accept Seth's view, you only have to ignore Jim Crow, sharecropping, segregated housing, poll taxes, segregated schools, lynching, the War on Drugs, mass incarceration and the 2008 financial crisis, which disproportionately wiped out African-American wealth, then accept the premise that four centuries of chattel slavery were really undone in fifty years, allowing you to locate the source of the "mess" in the excess benevolence of the Democrats.
But we agree at least that the disadvantage is real. What's Seth solution?
"The free market has a way of working things out."
In other words, he has no solution, which makes it weird that it's become a signature issue. But more on that later.
Next up, the Mueller probe. Naturally the same law enforcement apparatus that is unduly lax on Central American immigrants is overly enthusiastic about Russian election meddling.
Seth echoed the most extreme claims of President Trump, that Barack Obama used "government intelligence" (Seth's phrase) to spy on the Trump campaign.
This surprised me since not even Trey Gowdy endorses the president's #Spygate conspiracies anymore, but it's hard to keep up with the latest meanderings.
"You somehow think that there's something to the Mueller story," Seth said.
I think the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—representing the consensus view of the FBI, CIA and NSA—published a report on Russian election interference (they interfered), after which the president fired his FBI Director and announced on national television that he'd done so to end the fake Russia hoax witch hunt.
You can accept that stimulating fact pattern or decide, as the president seems to have done, that the DNI's conclusion was illegitimate and politically motivated to begin with, which: fine. But that seemed like an extreme view to me, for a conservative Republican.
I said it seemed like an extreme view to me.
"To you," Seth said. "To you it does."
"To me, right."
"But to me it's right out there for anyone to see. You don't want to believe it, but there's no doubt in my mind."
It's not that I'm so trusting of our intelligence services, but I'm aware that, historically, the FBI has not been a hotbed of progressive activism.
Anyway, Seth wasn't talking about FBI files on Martin Luther King Jr., or Greenpeace or the ACLU or "Black Identity Extremists."
He told a story about Jonathan Pollard, a former Naval intel officer convicted of selling NSA secrets to the Israelis. And maybe the Chinese. Whose conviction was supported by notorious libtards like Don Rumsfeld.
Polllard should have done a year in prison, max, Seth said, but he ended up doing 30 after getting stitched up by the CIA.
"In my opinion, every single thing, dirty trick, they did on Jonathan Pollard is exactly what the same people are doing to Donald Trump right now."
Pollard was back in the 80s though. Surely that must predate the Obama Deepstate, right?
"What I'm saying is it's the same career CIA people advancing their own personal agendas, successfully," Seth said.
The President said it's a small cadre at the top, but his story changes constantly.
"And it would have worked except Trump happened to win the election and it messed everything up."
I'm still hazy on the merits of a conspiracy to destroy Trump by letting him win the election, appoint his own Attorney General, appoint a Deputy AG, fire the FBI Director, appoint a replacement FBI Director and then spring the trap of a special counsel investigation but what do I know.
"So you think the FBI and the intel community have been politicized?" I said.
"They have been politicized by Obama, and it's almost like being in a banana republic. It's banana republic stuff."
"Haven't people pled guilty?" I said.
"Yeah, like, they've pled guilty to Martha-Stewart stuff. Process crimes."
"That seems like a crime though, what Martha Stewart did."
(Securities fraud, conspiracy, obstruction).
"People crossing the border have not committed a crime, yet. Why should they be punished but…"
"Look, you don't need me to do this story," Seth said. "It looks like you know what you're going to write about. But yeah, they are committing a crime. The crime is crossing the border without permission."
"It's a misdemeanor, right? Ten-dollar fine? And isn't the idea that they should have due process? Asylum-seekers can present themselves at the border…"
"Yeah, they've been coached by their Democrat lawyers. In other words, asylum is when you're fleeing for your life, right? You're in danger if you get sent back across the border. So how could someone crossing into the United States say their life is in danger in Mexico, if Mexico let them walk 700 miles to get to the United States?"
So, "They're committing immigration fraud," Seth said.
"Aren't they entitled to due process?"
"So, isn't it amazing that Congress doesn't give Trump the money to rapidly process these claims? Look I know where you're coming from. You can write the story however you want…but I think you're wrong and I think my job during this campaign is to persuade most voters that you are wrong and Trump is right on this issue."
At one point Seth said, "It's called asymmetrical warfare, where people who want to destroy our country are using children as human shields believing that Americans have so much compassion we will let our compassion outweigh common sense."
"You were talking about law a second ago, and how important it was but then in the case of people pleading guilty under the Mueller investigation that doesn't seem like an important…"
"I'm telling you that all the people indicted…if they were not associated with Trump, I think you agree, that nobody would care what Manafort did in 2005."
"I think we've been ignoring a lot of white collar crime for a long time," I said.
"So, if Mueller was looking for white-collar crime, I think the Clinton Foundation has a whole bucket of stuff that would interest someone interested in white-collar crime. Don't you think so?"
"I don't think she's president, and I don't think you're running as a Democrat."
"Ok. Alright well listen, so I think we're at an impasse here."
"What about Michael Flynn?" I said. "He had a very important position and he pled guilty."
"Look, I'm not going to convince you. You're not going to convince me…" Seth said.
"That's, like, a very convenient attitude to have, that somebody who's asking questions you don't like is not persuadable."
"They're not questions," Seth said.
"Do you think it's not germane that the head of the National Security Council [sic] pled guilty to crimes?"
"They're process crimes," Seth said.
"Lying to the FBI, right? That's not a serious crime?"
"I have no idea why he pled guilty…"
"You think this interest in holding officials in the Trump campaign accountable is bad faith or something?"
"Alright look. You don't see things that are obvious to me. And I don't know how to tell you that the Mueller investigation is not a real investigation. It's a witch hunt, just like President Trump said."
So, to recap: Lying to the FBI is not a serious crime when Martha Stewart does it. Central American immigrants—most of whom don't see a judge let alone a lawyer to coach them on Democrat talking points—are exploiting due-process protections. And we should de-politicize the FBI by listening to Donald Trump (the subject of its investigation)
Seth said I don't see things that are obvious to him. But for what it's worth it's obvious to me that a picture of George Soros in an SS uniform is probably hateful propaganda, given that Soros was an actual Jew whose people were gassed by SS officers, like the one in the picture. And if you can't do two seconds of research before spreading that propaganda, how seriously should we really take your musings on the New Deal, the Blacks, the Muller investigation or the vagaries of immigrant crime?
Seth said the Soros post (which he didn't write, it should be repeated) slipped through the cracks as he was leaving L&P to run for Congress. He said the picture was all over the Internet and came up during one of their breakfasts, where it was rejected instantly as an embarrassment.
Except it wasn't rejected instantly. It was posted to the Liberty & Prosperity Facebook page in mid-February and there it stayed, until a few weeks ago, people commenting on it approvingly.
"But we're not afraid," Seth said. (You're the majority party nominee.)
"The alternative of not discussing these things openly is that people privately think things that are wrong."
But people said things publicly that were pretty wrong—Soros was a Nazi mass murderer—so I'm not sure this alternative is so hot either.
"We believe that the best way to deal with fake news or false information or fake history is open discussion."
But "fake news" is Seth's euphemism for the mainstream media, and it wasn't CNN or the New York Times spreading alt-right conspiracy bullshit. It was Liberty & Prosperity. Moreover they didn't deal with it until someone from Route 40 (the mainstream media? God help us) called to ask about it.
The nonsense does start to feed off itself.
Seth says the diversity tape helped his candidacy, but he would know best. In the weeks since the story broke, he's doubled-down repeatedly in other news outlets and touted the backlash in fundraising requests.
Seth says the tape helped, "Because it brought attention to the fact that most Americans, I think, still believe that, in America, every individual should be judged by his talent, character and hard work, and not by how many diversity boxes he can check off on their resume."
I think it helped because it allows Seth to present himself as a member of an oppressed underclass and the "media" is trying to dismiss him, which only proves he's a threat to establishment. (I think he is the establishment).
Anyway, I disagree with Seth's premise that he's treated unfairly by the press. If anything, the coverage has been dressed in an idiom of neutrality, that is the opposite of objectivity and works in Seth's favor.
Salon.com for instance (not exactly Right-wing radio) called Seth's diversity crap "controversial."
It is not. It is ignorant, crudely provocative and popular but not controversial.
The Gannett papers let Seth say he was taken out of context (he didn't say how), then quoted bland, bromides from prominent Democrats and let Mike DuHaime, Governor Bridgegate's top strategist, spin the issue as a horserace story.
"Calling Democrats socialists and communists" is no way to win over "moderate and conservative Democrats in South Jersey," DuHaime said.
As if the real victims were Steve Sweeney's ironworkers.
Then there are ideological allies like Paul Mulshine, who wrote, "A lot of people are outraged" that Grossman was caught on tape making those comments.
"I'm outraged that they're outraged."
Anyway, Seth agrees we don't have equal opportunity in America. So what do all those judged-by-your-talent-and-character platitudes really amount to, without a level playing field? So much fluff in the end.
And if your solutions to the "mess" are "free market" and "better work for less money" maybe you're not interested in solutions. You're interested in grievance politics from the other side.
And there's considerable evidence for that interpretation as well.
In July 2016 Seth posted on Facebook that then-President Obama had "cleverly provoked" racists (my word) into making an issue of his birth certificate, which had never been an issue for other presidents, so he could ridicule them "when they asked reasonable questions about it."
That ridicule didn't hurt Donald Trump, the Birther-in-Chief. Why not double down on it?
In June 2015, Seth suggested Obama was a secret Muslim in a post that showed a man with a beard in front of a building in a country we have probably invaded.
"All I want to do is move to your country, rape our women [sic], bomb your buses, riot in your streets, and demand that you accept my religion," the man (fictional) said (not really).
"Why can't you be more tolerant?"
"***SHARE IF YOU UNDERSTAND THIS IS OBAMA'S 'RELIGION'***"
(Seth told CNN he didn't "recall knowingly posting that Barack Obama was a Muslim.")
December 2016: Seth says Obama created the racism he faced as president, having "perfected the technique of deliberately and skillfully poking conservatives, Republicans, and Christians in the eye, and then ridiculing and attacking them when they cried out in pain and anger."
March 27, 2016: Seth again. Just logged on to announce, "Islam is a cancer."
February 2014: Seth sees hidden progressive messaging in Coca-Cola ads and Axe deodorant ads that ran during the Super Bowl.
"Were they done as favors to the Obama regime in exchange for waiver [sic] or special treatment for some federal law, permit or tax?" he asks.
Or were the executive themselves secret "progressives" (scare quotes in the original) using "shareholder money to pursue their personal political agendas?"
December 26, 2015: Just dropped in to say, "Kwanza is a phony holiday invented in the 1960's by black racists…"
October 2014: Ebola is spreading across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, and Seth logs on to observe "progressives" (scare quotes in the original) killed millions during the AIDS crisis through overconcern with privacy rights and because wealthy bath-house owners donated money to "progressive" causes.
"Don't let 'progressives' and their 'political correctness' needlessly kill millions of Americans again. Demand the IMMEDIATE end to all commercial flights to and from Ebola infected areas immediately. Demand the IMMEDIATE enforcement of immigration laws at our borders."
November 2015: Seth posts a gory photo of the inside of the Bataclan theater in Paris, captioned (by Nick somethingorother) "This is what Barrack Hussein Obama has been promoting, funding and defending for seven years." Seth calls for us to "deport illegals" (most of the attackers were citizens).
December 30, 2014 Seth logs on to share a story from American Renaissance called "Confessions of a Public Defender" which is billed as a first-hand report "about the reality of race."
"Oy vay! What so many people, black, white and Hispanic, whisper to me privately but never dare say out loud publicly," Seth says.
What are these whispered truths?
"Most blacks are unable to speak English well."
"Hispanics usually commit two kinds of crime: sexual assault on children and driving under the influence. Blacks commit many violent crimes but very few sex crimes."
"As a young lawyer, I believed the official story that blacks are law abiding, intelligent, family-oriented people, but are so poor they must turn to crime to survive. Actual black behavior was a shock to me."
"The media invariably sugarcoat black behavior."
"For blacks, the courthouse is like a carnival. They all seem to know each other: hundreds and hundreds each day, gossiping, laughing loudly, waving, and crowding the halls."
"They cannot reason as well. They cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well. They are a threat to all who cross their paths, black and non-black alike."
(Seth told Media-ite, "I did not and do not agree with any of its claims, and never visited the website. I believe I got the post from [Allen] West who I thought was pointing out ignorance, hatred, and bigotry in both races, and the need to address them through open discussion.")
Then he went on Twitter to say Media-ite had called him a white supremacist (it did not) and declare that suggestion fake news (which he created).
Seth says since he's won the nomination he's "faced the same lies and hate that President Trump deals with every day" (compared I suppose with the truth and love at the core of his message).
He's outraged that you're outraged, in other words.
But I'm not especially outraged, for whatever that's worth. I am tired, a little bit, of two-bit charlatans courting outrage and then thinking the blowback validates their nonsense.
I'm tired of worrying every time there's a mass shooting or explosion that the perpetrator will have the wrong skin color or wrong religion and be used as a pretext to further dismantle the Constitution.
I worry a disease outbreak or crisis will become pretext for targeting the usual suspects, because hey don't let "progressives" and "political correctness" kill millions of Americans again (btw we're taking away your healthcare).
I worry about an establishment political party that controls the levers of power and all three branches of government (Seth says Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer really control Congress) but needs to position itself as somehow not in control (because tax cuts for private-jet owners are not anti-establishment).
And I worry about the dozens of other urgent problems we face but don't have the bandwidth for because we're dealing with this sh*t show 24-7.
Anyway. Seth will probably get clobbered in November (by a conservative) but then he probably didn't expect to win the primary in the first place.
In the meantime, this is our reality. You're either cool with it or you can stand for something positive. I hope you do the latter but I'm biased.
Building Work to Start Soon at AC Drip N' Scoop
Ice cream and donut store Drip 'n' Scoop is hoping to open this summer, after work was held up over the fall and winter, according to one of the owners.


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text:
/*
Package http allows for log messages to be sent via http.

Example

NOTE: you can use the HTTP handler as a base for creating other handlers

    package main

    import (
        stdhttp "net/http"

        "github.com/go-playground/log/v7"
        "github.com/go-playground/log/v7/handlers/http"
    )

    func main() {

        header := make(stdhttp.Header)
        header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer 378978HJJFEWj73JENEWFN3475")

        h, err := http.New("https://logs.logserver.com:4565", "POST", header)
        if err != nil {
            // handle error, most likely URL parsing error
        }

        log.AddHandler(h, log.AllLevels...)

        // Trace
        defer log.WithTrace().Info("took this long")

        log.Debug("debug")
        log.Info("info")
        log.Notice("notice")
        log.Warn("warn")
        log.Error("error")
        // log.Panic("panic") // this will panic
        log.Alert("alert")
        // log.Fatal("fatal") // this will call os.Exit(1)

        // logging with fields can be used with any of the above
        log.WithField("key", "value").Info("test info")
    }
*/
package http

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


3. a phenomenon, substance, or organism that exerts some force or effect: a chemical agent.
4. the means by which something occurs or is achieved; instrument: wind is an agent of plant pollination.
1. a person or business authorized to act on another's behalf.
2. a person or thing that acts or has the power to act.
3. a natural force or object producing or used for obtaining specific results: Many insects are agents of fertilization.
4. an active cause; an efficient cause.
5. a person who works for or manages an agency.
6. a person who acts in an official capacity for a government agency, as a law-enforcement officer or a spy: an FBI agent.
7. a linguistic form or construction, usu. a noun or noun phrase, denoting an animate being that performs or causes the action expressed by the verb, as the police in The car was found by the police.
8. a representative of a business firm, esp. a traveling salesperson.
9. a substance that causes a chemical reaction. Compare reagent.
10. a drug or chemical capable of eliciting a biological response.
11. an organism that is a cause or vector of disease.
12. to represent (a person or thing); act as an agent on: to agent a manuscript; Who agented that deal?
A substance that can cause a chemical reaction or a biological effect. Compare reagent.
In intelligence usage, one who is authorized or instructed to obtain or to assist in obtaining information for intelligence or counterintelligence purposes.
Noun 1. agent - an active and efficient cause; capable of producing a certain effect; "their research uncovered new disease agents"
impairer - an agent that impairs; "crops can be great impairers of the soil"
motor - a nonspecific agent that imparts motion; "happiness is the aim of all men and the motor of all action"
enlivener, invigorator, quickener - an agent that gives or restores life or vigor; "the soul is the quickener of the body"
relaxer - any agent that produces relaxation; "music is a good relaxer"
retardant, retardent, retardation - any agent that retards or delays or hinders; "flame-retardant"
shortener - any agent that shortens; "alcohol is a great shortener of life"
transmitter, vector - any agent (person or animal or microorganism) that carries and transmits a disease; "mosquitos are vectors of malaria and yellow fever"; "fleas are vectors of the plague"; "aphids are transmitters of plant diseases"; "when medical scientists talk about vectors they are usually talking about insects"
weakener - that which weakens or causes a loss of strength; "doubt is a great weakener of resolve"
handler - an agent who handles something or someone; "the senator's campaign handlers"
coolant - a fluid agent (gas or liquid) that produces cooling; especially one used to cool a system by transferring heat away from one part to another; "he added more coolant to the car's radiator"; "the atomic reactor used a gas coolant"; "lathe operators use an emulsion of oil and water as a coolant for the cutting tool"
1. representative, deputy, substitute, advocate, rep (informal), broker, delegate, factor, negotiator, envoy, trustee, proxy, surrogate, go-between, emissary You are buying direct, rather than through an agent.
2. spy, operative, mole, secret agent, double agent, secret service agent, undercover agent, foreign agent, fifth columnist, nark (Brit., Austral., & N.Z. slang) All these years he's been an agent for the East.
3. author, officer, worker, actor, vehicle, instrument, operator, performer, operative, catalyst, executor, doer, perpetuator They regard themselves as the agents of change in society.
agency, instrument, instrumentality, instrumentation, intermediary, mean (used in plural), mechanism, medium, organ.
(Comm) (= person) → Vertreter(in) m(f); (= organization) → Vertretung f; who is the agent for this car in Scotland? → wer hat die schottische Vertretung für dieses Auto?


text:
Tesco Bank reopens 3% interest current account but tightens eligibility criteria
Tesco Bank has reopened applications for its 3% interest current account, although new customers face restrictions if they want to earn the headline rate.
The supermarket giant was forced to halt applications for its current account in February due to an "unprecedented level of demand". Tesco Bank has today reopened applications, but new customers face added restrictions.
The current account still pays 3% interest on balances up to £3,000, but new applicants must pay a minimum of £750 into their account each month and have at least three active direct debits paid out of the account on a monthly basis.
Take a look at this week's best current accounts
New customers who do not meet these rules will not receive any interest on their balance.
Existing Tesco Bank current account holders will continue to earn 3% interest without having to meet these criteria. This rate of interest is guaranteed for all customers until April 2019.
All current account holders will also earn one Tesco Clubcard point per £1 spent at Tesco on their debit card until 1 April 2019. This is in addition to collecting one Clubcard point per £8 spent outside of Tesco.
David McCreadie, managing director at Tesco Bank, says: "I am pleased to reopen applications for our unique current account guarantee designed to provide peace of mind to our existing customers by offering a guaranteed credit interest rate, allowing them to make a return on their hard earned money.
"Given the unprecedented response to the initial offer we made in February, there are a number of conditions new customers must meet to qualify for the credit interest benefit of this current account offer."
How do Tesco's rivals stack up?
Current accounts have become a popular way to save and the Tesco deal is up there with the best, despite these new restrictions.
Elsewhere, the Nationwide FlexDirect account pays 5% interest on balances up to £2,500 for the first year, but this drops to 1% thereafter.
TSB pays 3% interest on its Classic Plus current account, although this is only on balances up to £1,500.
Both these accounts also have minimum pay-ins and other restrictions. For the full details, read Moneywise's guide to the week's best current accounts.
Santander cuts the interest rate on its 123 account and introduces a new overdraft fee
Santander has become the latest bank to charge an overdraft fee of 39.9%
Barclays introduces new 35% overdraft fee
Barclays to shake up overdrafts from March 2020.
New best-buy Cash ISA launched by Paragon paying 1.31%
Paragon expands savings range with new notice Cash ISA.
This week's best current accounts
When it comes to our day-to-day banking, many of us overlook how important it is to have a current account that suits our…
New FCA proposals could give savers a £260m boost
Customers could get higher returns on their savings accounts in a new FCA overhaul.
Are there drawbacks to switching banks?


text:
Home Indonesia Aceh West Papua East Timor
Jokowi woos millennials for his new cabinet
Jakarta Globe - July 8, 2019
Antara & Nur Yasmin, Jakarta – After his re-election, President Joko Widodo said his new cabinet for the second-term of his presidency might include millennials or youths under 30 years old.
"The world is getting more dynamic, we need young people who are dynamic, energetic and flexible to changes. Maybe [this time] we'll have a 20-year-old or 25-year-old minister," Jokowi said in an exclusive interview with Antara on June 12.
A fast-moving world needs fast-moving youths who could execute government programs swiftly, the president said, as he focuses on human capital development in his second term.
"We need ministers who are dynamic, energetic, flexible, adaptable and not reliant on routines. I don't like routines... we'll get left behind [if we only follow routines]," he said.
United Development Party secretary-general Arsul Sani said his party supports the president's agenda to include youths in his cabinet. He also said that parties that had just joined his coalition should get more than one position in the cabinet.
Jokowi has not revealed his cabinet structure.
Youths in government
Young people have taken a central role in the administration of the country since the famous "Youth Oath" in 1928. Young Indonesian fighters, known as "pemuda," were also heavily involved in the Independence War after the Second World War.
This year's election involved a newly created "millennials' party" called the Indonesian Solidarity Party, who did not make this year's parliamentary threshold but has vowed to continue supporting Jokowi.
Globally, there has been a trend of young people occupying ministerial or other important government positions. Malaysia's current Youth and Sports Minister is 25-year-old Syed Saddiq. United Arab Emirates' Youth Affairs Minister is even younger, 22-year-old Shamma Al Mazrui.
The United States also has the youngest woman sitting in its Congress, 29-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, known for her championing of youth, immigration and other controversial issues in the babyboomer-dominated congress.
A researcher in political governance at the Gadjah Mada University Research Center, Ignasius Juru, said age should not be a prerequisite to become a minister. But young people should possess at least three of the following qualities if they were to occupy important positions in the government.
First, according to Ignasius, they must have agency, which means they should represent a clear vision and also understand statesmanship. He said a smart young politician should have the potential to become a leader of the future.
Second, they must have a huge political capacity and conduct themselves professionally. This would allow them to draft policies and negotiate with different political interest.
Third, they must have a strong geopolitical knowledge to be able to navigate their way through regional and global politics.
Support from millennials
Jokowi's intention to include millennials in his cabinet has been welcomed by young Indonesians. Cania, a 24-year-old vlogger, said young people should occupy the Youth and Sports Minister and Communication and Informatics Minister posts.
"It's a bit ironic if the Youth and Sports Ministry can't live up to its name," Cania told Antara on Thursday.
Young people are also more suitable for the Communication and Informatics Minister post because they are more adaptable and more up-to-date with the flow of information in the world, according to Cania. However, she also said that they should have the right qualification for the job.
"I have not seen people my age producing breakthrough policies to solve Indonesia's myriad of problems," Cania said.
R. Adysurya, a 22-year old student and software engineer, said having the right qualification is very crucial. "This is the age of the millennials. Jokowi is on the right track, but selection must be tight," he told Jakarta Globe on Monday.
On the other hand, Iffah, a 23-year old accountant, said she doesn't think 20-year-olds should occupy ministerial positions. "20-year-olds are still unstable. People in their 30s are more assured and have more direction," Iffah told Jakarta Globe on Monday.
Source: https://jakartaglobe.id/context/jokowi-woos-millennials-for-his-new-cabinet
Cabinet & The Presidency
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What's happening inside Indonesia – News, analysis and statements on Indonesia, Aceh and West Papua translated from Indonesian language sources otherwise not available in English.
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The lighter (or darker) side of Indonesian politics. A unique collection of Indonesian political cartoons with English language translations and political commentary maintained as part of the Indoleft website.
APSN Archive Site
With the launch of the APSN Indonesia & East Timor Digest, the old Asia Pacific Solidarity Network website is no longer being updated but is still available as a public archive.
The Indonesia & East Timor Digest is is maintained by the Asia Pacific Solidarity Network (APSN), a network of activists building solidarity with and support for movements for social justice, genuine democracy and self-determination in the Asia Pacific region.
Indonesian Acronyms
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Best match results for entertainment school holiday activities for kids in Somerton + 30km.
At Bricks 4 Kidz-City of Whittlesea we offer fun-educational afterschool classes, where students will experience hands-on engineering fundamentals as they build motorised models using LEGO Bricks. Our classes are based on the S.T.E.M. curriculum and introduce children to engineering, architecture and scientific principles. During the school holidays we offer creative Holiday Workshops in Epping and Doreen which are based on LEGO model building featuring working motors as well as games and challenges. ... Read more We are also available for birthday parties where children enjoy a variety of activities, games and challenges using LEGO bricks. Parties are customised to fit the birthday child's specific age and there are many themes available! At Bricks 4 Kidz we also offer preschool classes as well as incursions and excursions for kindergartens, schools, afterschool care and holiday program providers.
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