More URJ Arrogance: A Real Reform BA'AL Teshuvah Alright...

Richard Furman has hutzpah to be saying the following. Why did Moshe address the men, by the way? Moshe addressed primarily the men with He said to the people "'Be ready for three days, don’t go near a woman.'" The Ivri men and women understood this as that the men were not to have sexual relations with the women (and vice versa) during Hayamim L'Kiddush. And the ishim, being the roshim l'ishot, had to be addressed. Moshe was not being chauvinistic or "not do[ing] all of what he was told".




The moment of the revelation at Sinai is a curious moment; It begins with our text telling us how God tells Moses to prepare the Israelites:

וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָֹה אֶל־מֹשֶׁה לֵךְ אֶל־הָעָם וְקִדַּשְׁתָּם הַיּוֹם וּמָחָר וְכִבְּסוּ שִׂמְלֹתָֽם: וְהָיוּ נְכֹנִים לַיּוֹם הַשְּׁלִישִׁי כִּי | בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁלִשִׁי יֵרֵד יְהוָֹה לְעֵינֵי כָל־הָעָם עַל־הַר סִינָֽי:(שמות י"ט: י"-י"א)

God said to Moses “Go to the people and sanctify them today and tomorrow; they shall wash their clothes. They shall be ready on the third day, for on the third day Adonai will descend before the eyes of all the whole nation upon Mount Sinai.”(Ex. 19:10-11)

The actual delivery of this message is rather different:

וַיֵּרֶד מֹשֶׁה מִן־הָהָר אֶל־הָעָם וַיְקַדֵּשׁ אֶת־הָעָם וַֽיְכַבְּסוּ שִׂמְלֹתָֽם: וַיֹּאמֶר אֶל־הָעָם הֱיוּ נְכֹנִים לִשְׁלשֶׁת יָמִים אַֽל־תִּגְּשׁוּ אֶל־אִשָּֽׁה:(שם, י"ד-ט"ו)

Moses descended from the mountain to the people. He sanctified the people and they washed their clothing. He said to the people “Be ready for three days, don’t go near a woman.”(Ibid, 14-19)

That Moses here is injecting a misogyny into the moment that God did not command is noted by Ellen Frankel in the Five Books of Miriam (117-118). Indeed, even the קול סתם, the narrative voice of Torah, tells us that Moses addresses “העם” whereas God told him to address "כל־העם", thus suggesting that Moses did not do all of what he was told. The injection of that misogyny, however, is not the main problem with this disparity, but rather that the change took place at all. This introduces the fundamental problem of mediated experience: the mediator necessarily changes the message.

Sometimes, I'm Lonelier When I'm Not Alone (As the Saying Goes)...

I have a mom who agrees with Rep. Michelle Bachmann's irresponsible comment that "Congress has more important things to pay attention to" re Penn State and Jerry Sandusky, a sister who'll vote for Ron Paul, and a whole bunch of friends and acquaintances (and other loved ones) who don't know half of the backstory of what I've been through. Then I have insensitive people-- disabled and non disabled alike-- telling me to make lemonade out of the lemons which life has given me. So, they can get and have the juicer, or can peel and squeeze the lemons-- good for them.

And you wonder why I haven't-- albeit selfishly-- been tempted to commit suicide?

I Think That Some Relatives May Be Reading This Blog & Still Won't Contact Me....

I honestly don't bite-- if I don't need to bite, that is. But I bite and fight pretty fairly. I'm not perfect; but I do love and am thankful for my family, even if they don't love and be thankful for me. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."

Great-Grandma Czarnecki was thankful for even the son who intended to rid of her in the most painful way possible-- in a cold hospital with her leg amputated and almost thrown away when she was already dying and wanted to die at home. That's why she "want[ed] to talk about it" to Aunt Mary-- she loved us enough to do that for Aunt Mary and the rest of us (including her great-great-granddaughter Brianna, who was yet to be born at the time. She loved Madison, too; but considered her a step-great-great-granddaughter, as Madison really only is-- through no fault of her own; but she's only Dad's step-- not his biological-- granddaughter, and she'll always be so far.).

As I said on Facebook last night (and after a distant cousin revealed that he's part of one of the crazy branches as well, and to the point where he will take the name of any woman who he will marry), I-- like Great-Grandma did-- talk about our family because I care enough to see our family history exposed to and reformed in the light:

• Luke 12:2-5, NKJV: ² For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. ³ Therefore whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops. ⁴ “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. ⁵ But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!
 
• 1 Corinthians 4:5: Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God.
• 2 Corinthians 4:2:  But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

That's why I do not dread Dad, Pop-Pop, and others who want to silence and our family histories and collective family history-- and that's why I want to thankfully use my gift of the right to free speech and "talk about" our family history.

I'll Make YouTube Videos In the Morning Instead, If I Can...

I'm just too tired; it's already been a long week (e.g., visiting a women's prison and still having no cell phone), and I can do more in the morning-- or afternoon, depending on when I get up. And who knows what the next second holds?

"¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will^[g] go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; ¹⁴ whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.

"¹⁷ Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin."

I Have No Problem Submitting Legitimately-Self-Hating, Israel-Threatening Jews To Masada2000.org...

Being talmidim of Meir Kahane, Masada2000.org often can and do go too far in who they consider Self-Hating, Israel-Threatening Jews-- and sometimes they don't go far enough (e.g., Jack Czarnecki. Excuse me, Masada2000.org; Jack Czarnecki refused to admit that he is Jewish when he was serving tax papers to Anti-Semitic Nixon, and thus refused to take a stand for the Jewish people. Then he later intended to rid of his Jewish Catholic mother, Mary M. Trudnak Czarnecki. Why don't I see "Czarnecki, John 'Jack' on Masada2000's infamous list).

That's why I submit only legitimate candidates. e.g.:

1. PM David Cameron (who got himself de-facto submitted long before I entered the picture),
2. Great-Grandma Gaydos (And if you think that betraying relatives during the Shoah and refusing to help them make aliyah is okay, you must have your head stuck in something.),
3. Senator Barbara Mikulski. I've blogged about her being a Self-Hiding, Self-Despising Jew; and having come from families of Self-Hiding, Self-Despising Jews, I had to go through the schpiel to discover my actual heritage-- and I never would've dreamed in a million years that we are Jews. And I am sick of that there are many Self-Hiding, Self-Despising Jews; especially ones like Senator Barbara Mikulski who refuse to use their power and authority to be open about their Jewish heritage and take a stand for the Jewish people. By the way, most Poles do not have brown hair and brown eyes, which Senator Mikulski does. And she got lucky, too-- I had to get the brown eyes from my (as far as is known) gentile Spanish-Irish-American mom (My dad's family ended up being Olive- and fair-complexioned, non-brown-eyed Ashkenazic Jews; and we were lucky to retain the Olive complexion where we did-- go figure.).

I Could But Won't Be Submitting My Sister to Masada2000's Infamous List (For Right Now)...

I ran into some errors on my computer, which I took as a sign. Meanwhile, I don't see how a Jew with relatives in Tel Aviv who were already betrayed by her kapo great-grandmother (Mary Rusnak Gaydos, whose name I absolutely submitted to Masada2000.org) is okay with betraying her relatives again. Voting for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) is an ultimate betrayal of Israel.

What Congressional approval does Ron Paul need to help Israel fight Iran? Isn't blessing Israel more important than listening to Congress? George W. Bush thought so when he declared war against Kabul (Afghanistan and Pakistan, cf. 1 Kings 9:13). George W. Bush blessed the memory of Dana Falkenberg and blessed Dana Falkenberg's people and country when he had Israel's greatest and then-freshly-wounded ally invade Kabul.

Why would Ron Paul ever listen to one Self-Hating Mossad agent and withdraw support from Israel? By the way, Ron Paul could never get away with saying that on FOX News-- Self-Hating Wolf Blitzer let him get away with saying that (as my sister told me. I don't watch or support Anti Semitic, though I'll glance at it from time to time at school since it's on the cafeteria TVs, anyway; and all I see on CNN is Far Leftism and Anti Semitism).

Ron Paul had better not be a Self-Hating Jew-- or Jewish for that matter, anyway-- because he will be particularly cursed if he is:

¹ Now the LORD had said to Abram:

“Get out [Lekh Lekha] of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
² I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
³ I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Last Blog Entry For the Next Couple of Hours...

When you have no cell phone (My friend couldn't find my cell phone.), no books (except for one notebook to take notes about a prison tour), papers to protect, and just a computer (and not the one at home); you tend to get pretty bored pretty fast and tend to blog a lot-- and a lot and a lot, and a lot (Try that phrase to Toby Keith's "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This, which I heard the last part of on the way home today-- and I still like Toby's older stuff, pre-Late 2000s, better. By the way, "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This" could go great with "Beauty and the Beast" and "My Heart Will Go On".).

I'm kvetching already. Meanwhile, I'll make some YouTube videos when I get home, and they'll be about the prison visit, etc..

I'd better go before I kvetch more and utz everybody.