Aish and the Book Ban

From an article in the Forward, by Steven I. Weiss (some background here):

Schroeder, who wrote the article being reviewed by Aish HaTorah, said he did not know that his writings were being used on the organization's Web site and that he was surprised they would have been removed.

"Just yesterday, I gave four hours of classes on the age of the universe, in Discovery," he said, referring to the organization's in-depth seminar program. Of the site's notice that the article was "under review, in consultation with today's leading Torah scholars," Schroeder asked, "Why would a Torah scholar know relativity, unless he's studied relativity?"

As DH put it, "now we know that Aish is just like every other Jewish organization." ("Organizaton"? What's that?)

Hat tip to Jewish Whistleblower.

A "Family Matter" No Longer

Biblioblogdom is abuzz with discussions of a recent SBL resolution objecting to the invocation of the Bible in defense of conservative political views. Jim West would have preferred that this remain an "in-house" matter, but at this point, I don't see the harm in weighing in. It won't take much effort, since Jim Davila has articulated my views precisely. I won't even provide an excerpt of the post. Just read the whole thing.

Ed Cook says, "this survey is the most depressing thing I have read for many days, especially since at the present moment, over 70% of the members voted AGREE." I am also disappointed, but I submit that many of those academics might not have supported the resolution if they had thought it over a bit. Ph.D.'s aren't awarded for common sense. It is easy to see how someone who supported equal marriage rights, abortion rights, and stem-cell research might think that, in voting "DISAGREE," he or she would be tacitly supporting the opponents of those causes. More power to Jim Davila and his ilk, those liberal-leaning academics who are nonetheless willing to vociferously object to this abuse of an academic institution.

UPDATE: By the time I voted, the tally was under 60% in favor. Of course, we don't know how many voters were just "fucking around."
At PaleoJudaica, an alternate formualtion of the resolution by Maxine Grossman. Better (much better, actually), but I still don't think it's SBL's place to get involved in U.S. politics.

Speaking of Heretics. . .

I'd like to welcome Rabbi Nosson Slifkin to the club. (To think, until about an hour ago I considered him a fundamentalist.)

You can read all about R. Slifkin's heresy here,or you can go straight to this wonderful article, in Dei'ah veDibur. An excerpt:

Gedolei Yisroel [the greatest living rabbis]* have issued an open letter against books by Rabbi Nosson Slifkin (also known as "the Zoo Rabbi") such as The Science of Torah and Mysterious Creatures, which are filled with heretical ideas on the fundamentals of emunoh [faith] formed by the former yeshiva student himself.

When these books reached the hands of English-speaking talmidei chachomim [religious scholars] they were shocked and dismayed at the contents. Several months ago HaRav Yitzchok Sheiner, rosh yeshiva [headmaster] of Yeshivas Kamenitz and a member of Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, wrote a letter to gedolei hador [the greatest rabbis of the present generation] in which he said, "As one who knows the English language I hereby testify before you that a talmid chochom [scholar] concerned for the honor of Torah and emunoh came to me and showed me books written by an individual by the name of Nosson Slifkin, which are hair-raising to read. Perhaps I transgressed the obligation to tear kria ["tearing,"** a mourning ritual] when confronted with things that appear to be complete heresy, against all that is accepted and known according to our faith ever since the Torah was given on Mt. Sinai. He believes that the world is millions of years old—all nonsense!—and many other things that should not be heard and certainly not believed. In short these books cannot be brought into the home of one who believes in Hashem and His Torah."

To this letter HaRav Elya Ber Wachtfogel, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas South Fallsberg, adds, "And he also writes that Chazal Hakedoshim [the authors of the Talmud] can err chas vesholom [God forbid] in worldly matters chas vesholom and therefore [they can err]*** in halochoh [Jewish law] as well chas vesholom, as he wrongly proves from maseches Horayos [a tractate of the Talmud] —all nonsense! And the whole book is filled with similar instances of total heresy. And even regarding the parts that are not total heresy, he who reads them and accepts his writings will eventually become a total heretic. And furthermore, even what is not heretical is expressed in a way only a heretic would speak." [I think that means that R. Slifkin doesn't write in Yeshivish.****]

My favorite line:

Rabbonim [rabbis] who gave their haskomoh [endorsement] to the book retracted their approbation in a letter explaining that they relied primarily on the fact the author was the product of yeshivas.

Now we know how much those haskomos are worth (not that there were really any illusions).

*The bracketed additions are mine, with one exception.
**A typical Yeshivish redundancy.
***This is the exception.
****This, of course, is good news for anyone who needed the information contained in the brackets.

UPDATE: Gil Student has a wonderful post with some inside information. (The comments are also worth reading.) DovBear has posted an "action alert" calling for the defense of R. Slifkin. DH has a few words on a related matter.

UPDATE 2: Interesting sociological analysis by the Hedyot (reactions?) and a shpoof.
Cross-Currents' Yitzchok Alderstein comments, and Paul Shaviv responds.
Looks like this is it for Gerald Schroeder. Welcome to the club.

Jerusalem, Home of the Depraved

A bizarre mental syndrome that has seen scores of visitors to Jerusalem become convinced they are characters from the Bible is the subject of a new art exhibition, reports the Scotsman.

Read more. (Hat tip to Jim West)

Correction in Catholic World News

This is old stuff, but it would be a shame if anyone who heard about the original error missed it. I have it tucked away in an update to an earlier post, which I realize is inadequate.

Vatican, Dec. 30, 2004 (CWNews.com) - The following is a corrected version of a story that appeared on CWNews.com earlier this week, in which a crucial error in translation caused a serious misinterpretation of the news. CWNews apologizes for the error.

Read the corrected story here.

Real Live Heretics

As you may have guessed based on the number of links in recent posts, I've been spending a good deal of time reading blogs. Too much time. I'm sure that most of you have had this experience, moving from one blog to another, link to link to link to link, for hours and hours. Along the way, I discovered something fascinating (okay, fascinating to me): a small network of blogs by Real Jewish Heretics.

I should explain. Most of you know that apikorsus (the name of this blog) is the Ashkenazi version of an Aramaicized Greek noun that, for traditional Jews, means "heresy." (To those who didn't know, sorry -- I didn't get around to it until just now.) I call my blog "heresy" because much of the content is heretical from an Orthodox perspective, and I have always had one foot in the (Modern) Orthodox community. On a certain level, though, the title is a joke. I don't stay awake nights worrying that I'll have no portion in the World to Come, and I haven't, as far as I know, been excommunicated from any religious denomination.

Let's face it: in the modern world, it doesn't take much to be a heretic. Innumerable* bloggers refer to themselves as such, and it doesn't seem to trouble anyone. No wonder: most blogging heretics are quite benign. There's a junk food heretic, a Star Trek heretic, even a knitting heretic. I used to read the blog of an Episcopal seminary student who used her real name and called herself a heretic. (She recently moved, having decided that the description was no longer appropriate.) Non-conformity is the new conformity.

But then, not everyone lives in what I call the "modern world." Certain right-wing Orthodox communities -- no, all right-wing Orthodox communities -- have resisted modernity to a greater or lesser extent. In such communities, non-conformity isn't chic, and it certainly isn't easy. There have always been doubters, but most have kept quiet. Now they have blogs.

Most these blogs are relatively new. There's mis-nagid, a confirmed atheist in a black hat. Then there's the Hedyot, an "ex-yeshiva guy finally speaking up." Most of the names are self-explanatory: A Hasid and a Heretic, OrthoSceptic, A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Chassidus Interruptus. Yitzhak Eyezik has just entered the blogosphere, but he hasn't done come in quietly. There is one female in the bunch, Fluffy Keneidele, who is articulate beyond her years. And there are surely more to come.

These aren't people who are simply frustrated with Jewish law or fed-up with frum society. They have fundamental objections to everything they've been taught to believe. Why don't they leave the world that they in which they were raised? I'm sure there are many reasons (some are discussed in the blogs), but surely this is one of them: most of these guys are married, and they are raising kids. Think about those kids, and tell me that the pressure to marry young is not an evil thing.

I'm going to go now, because I have an exam tomorrow and I've spent a ridiculous amount of time composing this post. Those of you who don't have exams should check out those blogs. There will be a few on the links list soon.

UPDATE: Two more: Mishlei Shlomo and Yoinoson Schreiber. (Btw, am I allowed to use the term "blogroll" even though I don't use Typepad? "Links list" sounds stupid.)

CLARIFICATION: It seems that Yitzhak Eyezik is also DovBear. So he's not so new, really.

Worthwhile Reading

. . .especially for my dad, who is now in the business of marketing Jewish meat. I'm referring to the Chayyei Sarah Shabbaton Chronicles as presented by Esther of JDaters Anonymous. Old, but timeless. Start with this post, then move on to the Chronicles proper. Esther has them laid out very neatly, with headings.

(Take note: there are comments on Sarah's posts, even where there appear to be none. It's a Haloscan bug.)

1/5/05: I should probably clarify that by "worthwhile" I mean "hilarious."

From a Grieving Father

This is from Seraphic Secret:

I lurk on Jewish websites for grieving parents and everyone seems to ask the same question about this massive tragedy: what did God have in mind? And anyone who is foolish enough to answer looks, well, foolish. All answers are simplistic and reductive and leave only larger questions that are all but unanswerable. I have no patience for the pat answers that some people propose: It's a test, it's an accounting, ultimately it's all for the good... These truly dumb answers bring out a kind of maniacal fury in me.

When Ariel was sick, I stopped looking for answers because, I quickly discovered, it was a waste of energy. As Job (42:3) says to HaShem: I can understand nothing. It is beyond me. I shall never know.

I think I'm finished cataloguing responses to the tsunamis. There's nothing of value left to say.

Too Good to be True

Ha'aretz has published a list of alleged forgeries associated with Oded Golan. Ralph the Sacred River has an English version. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, read this.)

We're all so hungry for external witnesses to the Bible that it's easy to be duped.

I keep thinking, what kind of people are these? How can someone so well-versed in history deliberately distort our understanding of the past? Is it really for the money? Or is it for the sense of power, the knowledge that they've fooled the experts?

Is this what happens to graduates of programs like mine who can't get jobs? Or are these folks who have turned down academia for the more lucrative business of trafficking in lies? Isn't that what academia is, anyway? No, no! I didn't say that! Shhh!!

That's One Way to Get Attention

Did your New Year's resolutions include spending more time reading Jewish-themed blogs? If so, be sure to browse the JIB Awards nominations at Israellycool. If not. . . well, you can still vote. Nominations are being accepted in thirteen categories, including Best Jewish Culture Blog, Best Jewish Religion Blog, and Best New Blog 2004.

Miscellaneous

I don't know how to respond to the recent catastrophe, so I am going to pass the buck. Below is a list of links to posts on the subject by Jewish bloggers. (Feel free to mention any that I missed in the comments.)

The Fourth Rabbi has a story from a relative in Thailand and some reflections on the fragility of human life.

Strange_Selkie has a characteristically moving theological post.

Chayyei Sarah shares some thoughts on hester panim (God "hiding his face") and tikkun olam ("repairing the world"), as well as a poem by a friend.

Out of Step Jew muses on monotheism and natural disasters and references a collection of responses by other religious bloggers.

Allison Kaplan Sommer reports on Israelis vacationing in Sri Lanka, shares an incredible personal account of the disaster, and gives us the depressing (though unsurprising) news that Sri Lanka has refused to accept an Israeli aid delegation. She also reminds us that donations to help the victims can be directed to the American Jewish World Service.

Rachel Barenblat has some more details on the AJWS emergency appeal, as well as other organizations offering aid.

Reb Yudel has a post on the same topic.

Miriam Shavit reports on a telling error in the Vatican newspaper.

In case that isn't enough for you, Judith at Kesher Talk has a few more links.

And now for something completely different...

The Christian Science Monitor is running a poll on whether U.S. based churches should divest from companies that do business with Israel. The anti-Israel position currently has a significant lead. Companies' overall perception of public opinion is likely to affect their decision-making, so your vote may make a difference. (All right, so it probably won't, but it only takes a minute to vote. What's the harm?)

For the sake of the technologically illiterate, I'll make this simple: Click here to vote.

(I realize that I'm making an assumption about the opinions of my readers. Needless to say, which side to vote for is up to you.)

UPDATE: One more post from Allison Kaplan Sommer on Israeli aid to South Asia. This one's more lighthearted. (Very funny, actually. And sad.)

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: The Vatican's rebuke was not directed at Israel but at Sri Lanka, for refusing to accept Israeli aid. I've read bad translations before, but this is ridiculous.

UPDATE 2: Bloghead discusses responses to the disaster by religious Jews. Gil Student cites Psalm 46. Allison Kaplan Sommer has an update on Israeli aid efforts. Hatshepsut bashes the media for failing to notice.

UPDATE 3: Andrew Silow-Carroll has an excerpt of a fax from the Sri Lankan government, apparently distributed by the Israeli Consulate. The government of Sri Lanka thanks the "government and people of Israel" for their assistance and explains that their earlier rejection of an Israeli rescue team was "due to the lack of accomodation available in the country at this point and skilled manpower required for medical attention becoming adequate for the present in many areas." I think that means that they didn't need or have room for any more helpers. I'll believe that when I hear about the rejection of rescue teams from other countries.

Be that as it may, the Sri Lankan government is clearly trying to undo its earlier decision, and that sounds like good news to me.

Biblogging

A while back (December 11th, to be precise), Jim Davila of PaleoJudaica wrote that he was inclined to stop using the term "biblioblogger" for bloggers who deal with the Bible:

I don't remember where it came from, but it's confusing: it looks like it could mean "bibliography blogger" or "book blogger" or "Bible blogger" or maybe even something else. "Bible blogger" ("academic Bible blogger," if you want to be precise) is much more straightforward and I think that's what I'm going to say from now on.

Ed Cook of Ralph the Sacred River objected that "Bible Blogger" has "overtones . . . of 'Bible Thumper,' 'Bible Believer,' and 'Bible Christian.'" This prompted a slew of alternative suggestions, including "biblablogger," "Bible scholar blogger," "biblicoblogger," "biblicablogger," "Bib-Lit blogger" (alternatively "BibLit Blogger," "BibLitBlogger," "Biblit Blogger," or "Biblitblogger"), "Scriptoblogger," "CryptoBlogger," and "antiquiblogger." (Cook suggested "biblogger" -- pronounced "bye-blogger" -- but that apparently sounded too much like "bisexual blogger.")

Personally, I'm somewhat partial to "BS Blogger," but then, I'm not really much of a biblioglioggerer (or whatever), so maybe it's not my place to proffer an opinion. (I'm not really a "postbiblioblogger," "transbiblioblogger," or "metabiblioblogger," either. "(Biblio+)blogger," maybe, but that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.) In any case, it's beginning to look like the bibliobliggerigs are going back to plain old "biblioblogger." So that may be the end of that.

In other news, US News & World Report has a special "collector's edition" out entitled Mysteries of the Bible. Thoroughly entertaining. Skip the timeline, though.

FYI

My DH has started a Live Journal. He calls himself "elfsdh." Very creative.

An Excuse to Eat Cheesecake

The RaMa (Rabbi Moses Isserles, c. 1525-1572) writes of a custom to eat cheese on Chanukah. The practice, he says, is meant to remind us of the milk that Judith served to a Greek general in order to put him to sleep, thus enabling herself to put him to death. This is curious, since the book of Judith (in its present form) has nothing to do with either Chanukah or dairy products. The story takes place during the reign of Nebuchadrezzar, over 400 years before the Hasmonean revolt commemorated on Chanukah, and the heroine lulls the enemy general to sleep with wine, not milk, before decapitating him.

The version of the legend involving milk is apparently the result of a conflation of Judith's story with that of Yael (Judges 4:17-31; 5:24-28), setting us back another 600 years or so. (Yael, according to the biblical narrative, lulled a Canaanite general to sleep with a bottle of milk before driving a tent peg through his head.) The Mishna Berura (Sh"A 670) harmonizes the two as follows:

She [Judith] was the daughter of Yohanan the High Priest. There was an edict that every engaged woman should sleep with a nobleman first, and she fed the head of the oppressors cheese to make him drunk, and cut of his head, and everyone fled.

The cheese apparently made the man thirsty, causing him to drink large quantities of wine.

Most scholars date the composition of the book of Judith to the Hasmonean period, and some suggest that it should be understood as an allegory for the Jewish struggle against the Syrian-Greeks. If this is the case, the story of Judith may be related to Chanukah after all, albeit not in the manner presumed by later Jewish tradition.

This, however, is not why I try to observe the custom of eating dairy on Chanukah. I do it because it provides an opportunity to tell the story of the story of Judith, a wonderful example of the continual re-creation of history within Jewish tradition.

That, and I really like cheesecake.

*Sort of. The author seems to have thought that Nebuchadrezzar was Assyrian, so one can't take the historical setting all that seriously.

Choosing Life

(I didn't come up with the biblical reference, but I like it.)

Our Hillel had a visit last week from the president and founder of the Halachic Organ Donor Society. Did you know that Jews have the lowest percentage of organ donors among all ethnic groups worldwide? If we valued life as much as we claim to, the opposite would be true. Organ donation has been judged halakhikally permissible by R. Moshe Feinstein and many Orthodox authorities after him, as well the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and the governing bodies of the Conservative and Reform movements. Some consider it obligatory. Our failure to donate is completely unjustified.

You can register for a donor card here. One of the more important things that I learned from the lecture is that in the United States, it is illegal to harvest a victim's organs without the approval of a spouse or family member. Many Jews oppose organ donation for all sorts of emotional and superstitious reasons, and sometimes because of misconceptions of halakha. If your emergency contact is one of them, your donor card is useless. You have to ask. (If a religious family member needs convincing, refer him or her to this page or this page.)

It's probably a lousy time to bring this up. But then, it usually is. Here's how I try to look at it: we take out insurance to protect ourselves from all sorts of eventualities that we hope will never occur. We don't like to think about these possibilities, and in most cases, the odds are that they will not happen. That doesn't stop us from doing what's necessary to protect ourselves. This is the same thing, except that it's for someone else. That doesn't make it any less urgent.

Full disclosure: DH and I haven't registered for cards. We're troubled by one aspect of the HODS form, which is its requirement that all preparations for transplant be made in consultation with a family-appointed rabbi. This seems like an unnecessary delay. If brain-stem death has been determined by a medical team, and if your family's rabbi views brain-stem death as halakhik death, what can he (or she) possibly have to contribute? (This is a serious question. Anyone?)

One last thing: HODS seems to be trying to arrange for lectures at synagogues, Jewish organizations, and high schools. Those of you in Jewish education and/ or the rabbinate might want to look into that.

Okay, that's all for now. We should all have good health, as they say. Happy Chanukah.

Okay, So I Lied

I just learned about the New English Translation of the Septuagint series from PaleoJudaica. This will be the greatest publication since Bernard Taylor's Analytical Dictionary of the Septuagint. (Translation: My Greek sucks.) In the meantime, there's Perseus.

I'm going to get back to writing my paper now.

Taking a Break

After this brief burst of blog and livejournal activity, I am going to take a little break to write a paper. I'll be back in December.

Bombs and Brimstone

What do you do when someone seriously -- and repeatedly -- advocates genocide at your table? I've blogged about this sort of thing before, but when it came up, I barely said anything at all. In part, this was because I was sitting all the way at the other end of the table (there were 9 of us), and I didn't feel like yelling. It was also in part because arguing seemed unnecessary. Everyone else was protesting, and the guy obviously wasn't going to change his mind.

On the other hand, it was my home. DH was mostly silent as well, and this bothered him. He told me later that he should have mentioned the Torah portion, in which God declares that he won't destroy Sodom if there are as many as ten innocents in the city. But that raises the question of whether we can legitimately discuss, in this sort of context, the "Torah perspective" on genocide. It isn't wrong because the Torah seems to imply that it's wrong (or at least, because it seemed to imply that last week). It isn't wrong because, as a rabbi I know once said, no major poskim [legal authorities] have permitted it. It is simply wrong -- deeply, morally, unquestionably wrong -- to murder noncombatants. I'm sure our guest realized this when he read the horrible news from Tel Aviv this morning. How is killing Palestinian civilians any different?

But here I am trying to make a rational argument again, on a subject that doesn't deserve to be granted this degree of legitimacy. So back to the practical end of things: what should we have done? Should we have risen in righteous indignation and refused to serve the next course until he recanted? Should we have shown him the door? Or should we simply have changed the subject?

Mom's Latest Book Design

An animated ad for Yiddish with Dick and Jane. (Gevalt!)

Cheeeeeeeeeeeese!

This may seem like a lame topic to choose after a month of not blogging, but it's important to me. Cabot cheeses certified kosher by Tablet-K now bear the Tablet-K symbol on their packages, so we won't have to request a copy of their certificate every year. More importantly, Cabot sharp and extra-sharp cheddars are now kosher. (The extra-sharp cheddar is fantastic.) Most Cabot cheeses are also certified Halal, and the rennet used at the Cabot plant is certified by the American Vegetarian Society. (No, they're not paying me for this.)

A recent comment thread on Kosherblog suggested that Cabot bar cheeses may at some point be certified by the more widely-accepted OU. It looks to me like the process is being held up for strictly financial reasons, but of course, one can never be sure.