Thursday, August 28, 2008

Teshuva Thoughts

There can come a point in a man's life where he realizes he's written more checks than his soul can repay... That no amount of judgment can justify his existence.... nothing can be done that can justify his valuing of himself even existentially.... מן העץ אכלתי ואוכל (see Breishit Rabba on the pasuk) ... and so there is nothing but silence... and all that is left for him to do is sit and cry... until he dies...

...but i guess the only next step to make is the recognition that nothing in this world can truly justify it's existence.... ושמים לא זכו בעיניו .... and so his evil is everything and nothing all at the same time...

I don't know how this fits exactly with R' Elazar ben Durdaya...

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Interesting-- Sleeping North-South

See Brachot 5b v'dok

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080826/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_magnetism_mammals;_ylt=Aq2oysA02JYVbu.PgSokL23tiBIF

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Grazing cattle and sleeping deer tend to align their bodies along the North-South axis of the Earth's magnetic field, European researchers said on Monday, giving new meaning to the phrase animal magnetism.

Herdsmen and hunters have long known that cattle and sheep tend to face the same direction when grazing, but had believed they were simply positioning themselves according to prevailing winds or the sun's rays.

Sabine Begall of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany and colleagues had a different idea. The researchers studied 8,510 satellite images of cattle and deer herds derived from Google Earth from around the globe, including 308 pastures and plains.
They also looked at deer beds -- impressions left in the snow by resting deer -- from nearly 3,000 deer in more than 225 locations in the Czech Republic.

They found that whether grazing or resting, these animals face either magnetic North or South. And since the direction of the wind and sun varied widely where the images were taken, the researchers believe the Earth's magnetic field to be the polarizing factor.Although not seen before in large mammals, birds, turtles and salmon are known to use the Earth's magnetic field to guide their migrations, while rodents and one bat species have been found to possess an internal magnetic compass.

The researchers noted that humans and even whales are suspected of having an innate magnetic compass.Some studies suggest humans who sleep in an East-West position have far shorter rapid eye movement or REM sleep cycles, in which dreams occur, compared with North-South sleepers who got more REM sleep.

"Our results call for an in-depth study of this phenomenon and challenge neuroscientists, biochemists and physicists to study the proximate mechanisms and biological significance of magnetic alignment," Begall and colleagues wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(Editing by Andrew Stern and Todd Eastham)

[3/17/2009 additional article]

WASHINGTON – High-voltage power lines mess with animal magnetism. Researchers, who reported last year that most cows and deer tend to orient themselves in a north-south alignment, have now found that power lines can disorient the animals.

When the power lines run east-west, that's the way grazing cattle tend to line up, researchers led by Hynek Burda and Sabine Begall of the faculty of biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They also found that cows and deer grazing under northeast-southwest or northwest-southeast power lines faced in random directions.

Mental Masturbation

I'd like to coin a new term called Mental Masturbation.
[I saw afterwards it's already out there. See below]

Mental Masturbation is the engaging in the pleasure of one's own solipsistic ideologies and self-projections with little or no corroboration with any empirical or factual data externally. The pleasuring of oneself mentally and intellectually, with one's own internal self-thoughts, even when their truth is completely unsubstantiated and ultimately conjecture.

An example I could think of would be a "scientific" discussion of the moon 1000 years ago. A man will come and "offer his thoughts" that the moon is made of cheese. That's why it has it's white color and dark spots and crevices, etc. Another man may come along and claim that the moon is it's own material (an ether of sorts), with other various characteristics and properties all uniquely specific unto itself, etc. Yet a third man could come along and suggest the moon is (as we know it to be true today) made of rock, and all of the accompanying features that come with that, etc

All these thoughts being offered mind you, without any substantive proof of logic or specific nuance making it evident that, yes, that is The Answer, the only answer. No calculations or experimentations. No broad canvassing of other heavenly bodies or phenomena to try and get a sense of patterns or unifying shared concepts. Just ad hoc: The moon is white and cheese is white so let it be cheese...or rock... or whatever is white. In other words, answers that "fit into" the question but not "fitting" the question.

Consequently they're all "wrong" here-- even the third man, insofar as everything that everyone said was just conjecture with no real proof of corroboration to facts. Everyone's just saying that which "speaks to them" or "feels right". Without having some kind of benchmark measure of data to "work within" or "verify against" it's all just conjecture and the "rock theory" is no better than the "cheese theory" even if generations later it's discovered (through scientific investigation i.e. drisha) that the moon is in fact composed of rock.

And so I come to my point: the hopeless state of Mental Masturbation among Torah Jewry (vis-a-vis the empirical truth of Torah) at even the highest levels of leadership and scholarship. The Rabbi's "Shabbos Morning" sermon where he conveniently "fits in" to the Parasha his agenda pertaining to current events, or the "cute vortlich" among Rebeiim and Roshei Yeshiva (which 75% of the time even the speaker himself knows that the vort is probably not the true intent of the Torah). The "Kabbala Centre" self-help ideas which have been just retrofitted to work within the "jewish framework" of Ten Sefirot or the yeshiva bochur, with his "bag full of ideologies" that he's picked up from yeshiva, with absolutely no cognizance as to how those same ideologies can be traced back to a Sinai and to a Torah she'Bichtav.

And so we live in a world that is totally oblivious to a "scientific methodology of Torah Study" (Drisha) but instead finds its particular circle of mental masturbators that matches best and just "joins in" as it were. A world oblivious to a Shimon haAmsuni (Pesachim 22b) , that will have one את to say a cute vort on and a thousand אתים in direct contradiction to, and still unashamedly make that one את their personal platform and podium for spouting whatever personal agenda they may want to say, all the while justifying it under protection of a שבעים פנים לתורה. A world that has completely abandoned a י"ג מדות שהתורה נדרשת בהם and practically doesn't even know that Midrashei Halacha like Sifra and Sifrei exist. A world of readers reading this blog and saying to themselves "I don't get it. How else can you learn Torah then???"

And so if I could just give over one message to the Torah world out there it would have to be:
Just Say NO to Mental Masturbation!


[יחזקאל טז יז- ותקחי כלי תפארתך מזהבי ומכספי אשר נתתי לך ותעשי לך צלמי זכר ותזני בם]


ספרא נגעים פרק יג משנה ב -- "אמר לו הרי אתה אומר לכתוב שתוק עד שאדרוש" עיי"ש

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

[Post Script: After Googling I see that the phrase Mental Masturbation is already around but fascinatingly enough with a slightly but fundamentally different meaning. The common usage seems to be "mental thought that is unproductive" i.e. just as masturbation is a non-productive activity... but i think that's wrong. The problem with masturbation is not that it's "non-productive", to the contrary it's very productive in giving a person pleasure. The problem with masturbation is that it's an act of fantasizing an external reality and engaging with that fantasy i.e. a denial of reality and an escape into one's own solipsistic world. It is with that understanding of masturbation that i use my term mental masturbation]

[Very happy to just discover shiurim of Rav Michael Avraham on the subject of Midrashei Halacha. Starting to listen to them now...]

Sunday, August 24, 2008

My Grandfather - Rabbi Dr. Soleyman Dayan z"l

Googled my grandfather for the first time last night since he passed away about 7/8 years ago (and amazingly my cousin zvi thought to do the same the night before, some sort of parapsychological communication i guess) and found this article. He was a good man I feel.
טוב שם משמן טוב.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE3DB1131F93AA35754C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

For Emigres, A New Land Of Sorrows
By DONATELLA LORCH
Published: July 9, 1991


Yahya Azizi, an Iranian Jew, finally joined his wife and children in America in November 1988, sick and exhausted after three months of torture in one of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's prisons.
Ten days later, on a cold night, two men in jeans and sneakers knocked loudly at the door of the Azizis' apartment in Forest Hills, Queens. They were Secret Service agents, they said, and they wanted to talk to Mr. Azizi's 21-year-old son, Michael.

The next few minutes were all shouting, fighting and confusion. And when it was over, Mr. Azizi, his wife, Ketayaf, his daughter, Mitra, and Michael Azizi were handcuffed and placed under arrest. Mr. Azizi had made it out of Iran, but his family's newest sorrow was only beginning.
There is a simple reason why a routine call about a check-theft charge ended so badly for the Azizis: both agents were injured in the melee, and even Michael does not deny that he struck them. To the Azizis and their friends and supporters among New York's Iranian Jews, though, the story is far more tangled and far harder to understand: an extreme case of the trials of strangers in a strange land. Fear Molded by Persecution

More than anything, they say, the fight was a matter of self-defense. They could not believe that such casually dressed men were actually Federal agents. A mother was protecting her son. The son was protecting his mother. Captives of their misunderstanding and fear -- fear molded by years of religious persecution in Iran -- they did not know what was happening to them.
"I couldn't understand," Mr. Azizi said. "I was worried that it was happening just like in Iran. They just take you. No questions."

Now, two and a half years later, after a trial and an appeal, Michael Azizi is serving a 24-month sentence in a medium-security Federal prison in Danbury, Conn., for assaulting Federal officers. Miss Azizi and her parents were acquitted of similar charges. Charges of check theft or fraud were dropped by the United States Attorney's office. The Azizis are bewildered and lost. They say they have lost face and self-respect in their new country. And for a time, they have lost their only son. He was the reason the Azizis came to America, they say, and, as the only one in the family who could speak English, their guide to the new world.

In prison, Michael Azizi, who constantly worries about his family, has lost weight and says he fears for himself and for his family's survival. Mr. Azizi, 55, and Mrs. Azizi, 45, speak only stumbling English and shuttle between their jewelry store in Jackson Heights and their home in Forest Hills.

"I can't believe this happened to us," said Michael's 25-year-old sister, Mitra, who keeps a Persian-English dictionary under the store counter to help translate for her parents and herself. "It was just like a movie. A dream. Now when we see a policeman, even one with a uniform, my parents' face, it turns white."

Small and frail, Mrs. Azizi, speaking in Persian, interrupted her daughter. "We came just for Michael, for his happiness," she said. "He wanted to study to be a doctor." Fled From Iran in 1986

Michael (Merhdad) Azizi fled Iran in 1986 by horse and camel to Pakistan. Like many other Iranian Jews, he was escaping anti-Semitic decrees under the Ayatollah Khomeini's regime that did not allow Jews to attend a university and that subjected them to summary arrests. He also fled the country to avoid being drafted into the army as many Iranians are. Once in New York, he enrolled in Queens Community College and worked as a busboy in a restaurant at night, Mitra Azizi said.

Mitra Azizi, his mother and his then 10-year-old sister, Sharhzad, joined him in early 1988, settling first in a tiny apartment in Rego Park then moving to Forest Hills.
In March 1988, Yahya Azizi also tried to flee Iran. He was not as lucky. The Iranian police caught him as he was about to cross the border into Pakistan. They stole family jewelry and stamp collections -- the little wealth he could carry with him to help start a new life in the United States -- and threw him in jail.

"They blindfolded him and they put him on a rack and they shot blank bullets at him," Mitra Azizi said. "They took a thick cable and hit him on his hands and back."
He was freed after three months and made his way to New York by December.
The Secret Service agents went to the Azizi home on Dec. 12. They were investigating charges that Michael Azizi had cashed two Social Security checks totaling $700 that belonged to another Iranian, but had never sent the other Iranian the money. Confused by the agents' attire, Mr. Azizi asked his son to call 911 so that they could confirm that the men were in fact law-enforcement officers.

Mr. Azizi said he asked his son to block the door. The family said a fight broke out, Mrs. Azizi grabbed an agent's gun, then Michael jumped on the agent who had begun hitting his mother. Among other injuries, Michael Azizi broke an agent's nose. The other agent needed stitches inside his mouth. In 911 recordings presented during the trial, Sharhzad and neighbors screamed for help.

"It was intentional and deliberate," Jonathan Polkes, the assistant United States Attorney at the trial, said of Michael Azizi's aggression. "This is how life happens."
In a recent telephone interview from prison, Michael Azizi said he had done nothing wrong.
"I see him choking my mother to death," he said. "The fight happened, but I've never been sorry."

Within the 15,000 Iranian Jews in New York City, many say they believe that the fight was the culmination of a series of cultural misunderstandings. Dr. Soleyman Dayan, a rabbi and the president of the Rabbinical Sephardic Community in Queens, did not know the family in 1988. Yet he put up the $50,000 bail and said he signed a statement that said he would go to jail in Michael Azizi's place if the youth disappeared.
"Where are they going to run away to?" Rabbi Dayan asked. "Iran? Without Michael the family is lost. He was the doer. The father is destroyed. He never knew what was going on. He thought it was all a joke."

In the cramped family store, named Mike's Jewelry at 37-67 Street off Roosevelt Avenue, it is as if life has stopped. The Azizi family seems to live on automatic pilot. Customers say Mrs. Azizi often breaks down and cries. Mr. Azizi, his face etched with lines of a man 10 years his elder, rarely speaks.

Michael Azizi opened the store for his family in 1989 before he went to jail. The day before it opened, the previous store was burglarized for $100,000 worth of jewelry. The family had no insurance, Mitra Azizi said. To pay debts they keep the store open seven days a week. Before he turned himself in, Michael Azizi taught his sister Mitra how to do basic repair work, where to order jewlry and how to balance the accounts. Miss Azizi still has trouble with English and at times does not understand her bills.

Jackson Heights is mostly a Hispanic neighborhood, and Miss Azizi has learned to bargain in Spanish. As in shops in Iran, the Azizis offer their customers candy and black-sugared tea served in a glass.
Mitra Azizi plans to marry in August and dreams that her brother might make the wedding. She will not live with her husband in Washington but stay and run the store until her brother is released.

Michael Azizi calls home every day and Mrs. Azizi cries. His day is spent washing floors, mowing lawns and avoiding his fellow inmates whom he describes as a "rough group."
"I didn't come to America to kill somebody," he said. "All my dreams were always to come to America. I feel scared. But the U.S. is my last stop. I still believe in this country."
While Miss Azizi is angry at the system that punished her brother, her parents are resigned. Mr. Azizi, like his son, still loves the country he came to.

"When you say 'America' in Iran, you think freedom," the father said. "I came here so that Michael could have his freedom, his education. I had everything I needed there. But my life is here now and I like America."


Saturday, August 23, 2008

Talmud Bavli Manuscripts -- Hebrew University

Just came across the Hebrew University's webste http://jnul.huji.ac.il/eng/ejudaica.html --- amazing!! overwhelming!! There's is SOOO much there.

But one thing in particular i came across was a section of online manuscripts of Gemara -- http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/talmud/

you can pick any gemara from among three versions of manuscripts (1) Fireze, Italy (2) Munich, Germany (3) Paris, France

anyway, it's really something that would and should take a lifetime to process... but just one interesting thing i saw when looking at the French Manuscript on Berachot:

where the gemara wants to know on the pasuk ובא השמש וטהר ... how do we know וטהר is on the day and not the man... our version has because it should have said ויטהר but the version in the French manuscript is לכתוב קרא וכבוא השמש וטהר and I really like the logic of that version actually.

Friday, August 15, 2008

שבעה דברים בחכם וכו' -- אבות דרבי נתן

See Avot D'Rebbi Natan on that Mishna (Perek ??):

אינו נכנם לתוך דברי חבירו -- Usually this is understood from a prudent point of view i.e. let a person finish their words before you assume you know what they are going to say, you may be wrong.
... I'd like to suggest differently. See the proof the אבות דרבי נתן brings is from Hashem's allowing Avraham to go through the whole "bargaining the # of Tzadikim" in Sdom and the other 4 cities.
...if so, it's not an issue of prudence on the part of the chacham...

Rather, Hashem knew there weren't even 10 Tzadikim but he went through the whole drawn out process with Avraham for Avraham i.e. Avraham needs to be allowed to finish his thought process and work through his misperceptions and mistakes himself. He needs to be allowed to "work it out himself, for himself" and even if Hashem Himself is the Chacham on the other side, knowing his friend is completely off the mark, restraint and patience has to be given to allow the other party to realize the truth themselves. The objective "Right and Wrong" of the matter is irrelevant vis-a-vis the individual who has yet to discover the truth for himself.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Crowning Glory

There's a song by Julie Andrews and Raven-- Your Crowning Glory. Google the lyrics for the whole thing http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=crowning+glory+lyrics

But just the piece i thought interesting:

Dear little girl/ you are terribly blessed/ But it's your heart of gold/ I love the best/ And that will be your crowning glory/ your whole life through/ It'll always be your crowning glory/ The most glorious part of you

The "Crowning Glory" of Hod being associated with the Heart/Lev.
Lev Aharon.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Human Beings

Interesting that we use that phrase -- Human Being -- the reference to the existential havaya.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Falun Dafa/Gong

The beautiful thing about investing in stocks actually (and working in general) is your interacting and interconnecting with the world outside. Had a stock that suffered from a chinese government deal-back-out, rumored to be because of some of the political unrest out there.

(see: http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Smart_Ideas/Outdoor/G9U8P7G6 )

Which led me into reading about Falun Gong or Falun Dafa (the group the Chinese Govt is against, and I really hope all the horrible accounts I read about the persecution are exaggerations.. terrible). Found their website http://www.falundafa.org/eng/intro.html and some promotional videos of the practice on youtube.

anyways, just the piece I thought to put down: the 3 tenets of the system --- Truthfulness, Benevolence, Forebearance ... sounds alot like (l'havdil) Hesed, Gevura, & Tiferet to me.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

שתי תורות הברית

Unfortunately, this is a piece that's part of a much larger idea and shiur that i never got the gumpgo to organize and write down. But all roads lead to Truth, and if it is the Truth then I'm sure someone else traveling along the road will discover the same and find use.

The commitment of ברית allowing for the peaceful integration of נעשה ונשמע , Heart and Mind, Loyal Subordination and Independent Intellectual Opposition, עבודה and תורה, gאהרן ומשה , Sefaradim and Ashkenazim .... and today's realized addition:

כתב-לך את-הדברים האלה כי על-פי הדברים האלה כרתי אתך ברית ואת-ישראל

Torah Sh'bichtav and Torah sheB'alPeh functioning in the same way. The structured framework of Torah Sh'bichtav with the open, independent, challenging of b'alPeh. == Brit.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Initiating an Initiator -- Receptivity

We're accustomed to thinking that in male-female courtship the man is always the initiator e.g. the one to approach the girl, to ask her out, her phone number, etc. But actually I think that's only half true.
It's often the female who will first show signs of receptivity beforehand. It's the expression of receptivity that is the true initiator of the initiate so that ultimately what you have is two separate initiators --- one b'itgalya and one b'itkasya.
That I think is part of the dysfunction in your standard shidduch set-up. The man is attempting to court someone who has no real initial interest in him. In live settings, we men can make use of certain tricks to help induce that receptivity ;-)

The idea came to me when reading about the mating procedures of dolphins. There's alot we can take from dolphins in understanding our own selves i think (Bechoros 8A)

As I mentioned though, there are forms of courtship which are completely initiated by the male with no initial female interest whatsoever. It then becomes a responsibility on the male part to "spark her interest" i.e. to create a need, a want, receptivity.

Be that as it may though, either path you take, at some point in the process a need of, and receptivity to, must be formed for any true "click" of a male-female energy to work. Only empty spaces can be filled.

http://67.55.50.201/lilly/dolsex.html - strange website though. Dr. Lily experimented with LSD while examing the dolphins so who knows if the info is credible....

http://www.zoophile.net/dolphin.php -- we have what to learn from the man regardless of his being an עבריין

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070403224451.htm

[Afterwards, I saw it's מדוייק in Avot D'Rebbi Natan (פרק א) :
עשר קללות נתקללה חוה באותה שעה ..... והוא ימשל בך שהאיש תובע בפה והאישה תובעת בלב. ]