Tzvee's Talmudic Blog

Bring Back the Chazan

2009-12-03T22:18:00.001-05:00

I was happy to read in 2006 about the film, "A Cantor’s Tale".

Perhaps this film will help us bring back that lost art of cantorial singing. Alas, today, in many of our Orthodox synagogues, its stead we have DIY (do-it-yourself) davening.

That's what I call it when a non-professional leads the services at the synagogue.

In the Teaneck area that's about all you can ever expect in an Orthodox shul. It's a rare occasion when a professional chazzan, a cantor, leads the prayers.

I don't like DIY davening. First of all I don't favor it because I grew up in Manhattan where nearly all the shuls had chazanim. Hence I do know how formal davening sounds. I know how formal davening changes the character of the sanctuary. A good chazzan can create a palpable focus, a presence, a numinous, holy quality in the house of prayer.

Consequently I don't like DIY davening because of its informality. When a non-professional lay person leads the prayers, it contributes to a sense of casualness that is conducive to talking. It engenders a lack of focus that frequently leads to congregants daydreaming and engaging in idle chatter.

Worse, sometimes this background hum of conversation in the shul leads to problems for the synagogue staff. The rabbi, who should maintain his dignified leadership and stature at all times as the spiritual model for the synagogue, sometimes finds it necessary to rise up at the pulpit and berate the murmuring congregants -- as if they were schoolchildren talking during quiet time in a classroom.

The grisley details include these stories.

One local rabbi in town has gotten up in front of his flock and announced, "We welcome you all to our shul, except for the four of you who were talking during the davening."

Another rabbi once cancelled the concluding Shabbat Musaf hymn, Ayn Kelokeynu -- because there was too much talking -- and he told everyone to go home. Another time he simply told people who talk in synagogue to, "Stay home."

A third rabbi usually stands in the middle of his shul's pews as if he was a monitor in the hall, waiting to catch children misbehaving.

I feel bad for those Rabbis who berate or monitor their membership and are forced to take leave of their assigned roles to add dignity and awe to our holy rituals of prayer.

In the old days, that monitoring, when needed, was the role of the shammos. Nowadays in our DIY synagogues, that professional also seems to be absent.

Accordingly, I propose that we bring back these two professionals of the American synagogues of yore. We should bring back the chazzan to insure that a constancy of quality and a regular sense of holiness permeates our services.

I further propose that we bring back the shammos who will patrol the aisles of our shul. Then, on that rare occasion, when a congregant leans over to speak with his neighbor, the shammos will politely and privately ask him for respectful silence.
//repost from 9/8/06//

Makes a Great Hannukah Gift: "Archaeology, Stamps and Coins of the State of Israel" by Yitzhak Zahavy

2009-12-03T08:16:00.000-05:00

Preview

Announcing the publication of a brilliant new book:

Archaeology, Stamps and Coins of the State of Israel

by Yitzhak Zahavy

This book explains how archaeology is used in the politics and nationalism of the State of Israel through its stamps, coins and currency. Taking the reader from the pre-state years to the modern day, Archaeology, Stamps and Coins of the State of Israel catalogs and analyzes the Israeli government issued materials that employ archaeological motifs.
Purchase this excellent new book here.

Tzvee's 5th Kavvanah: Writing takes precedence over blogging

2009-12-01T23:48:00.001-05:00

Soon to be fully fleshed, we are working out the archetypes of our liturgy.

A cryptic snippet for today.

There are at least four types of kavvanah at play in the activity of the Meditator archetype in our minyan, and they are:

Daily mini mindfulness of the body, food, weather etc. (berakhot)
Full fledged Meditations of Compassion for all sentient beings (Jewish first) (birkat hamazon)
Scribal focus for textual presence (shema)
Authoritative control over all distraction (amidah)

JTA: Do Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky Live at the Jewish Theological Seminary?

2009-11-30T16:59:00.004-05:00

We just got home from teaching at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and can attest that we did not see Chelsea and her beau Marc there. But the way JTA words their story (below), that is where the couple now lives.

We suppose that we wish them a mazal tov. Will Chelsea convert? We don't really care.

Kushner-Trump now this. Do we see a new felon-shiksa pattern emerging here, i.e., Your dad goes to jail for a felony and then you marry a famous non-Jewish girl?

Chelsea Clinton to wed Jewish boyfriend
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Chelsea Clinton is engaged to marry her Jewish boyfriend of two years.

Clinton, 29, the only daughter of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, became engaged over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky, 31.

Mezvinsky, who works for Goldman Sachs, is the son of former U.S. Reps. Ed Mezvinsky (D-Iowa) and Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinksy (D-Pa.). The elder Mezvinsky recently served a prison term for swindling $10 million from investors in a series of Nigerian e-mail scams. He was released in 2008.

Mezvinksy and Clinton met in Washington in 1993, and both attended Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Clinton, a Methodist, was seen attending Yom Kippur services in September with Mezvinsky at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, where they both now live.

The couple announced their engagement last Friday in a mass e-mail to friends, a Clinton spokesman said, according to media reports.

Talmud and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

2009-11-29T18:38:00.002-05:00

If you haven't read Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values lately (or ever) you need to do so.

In his exploration of a metaphysics of quality, Pirsig gives clear priority to the "classical" approach to life over the "romantic" approach.

He gives preference to the notion that to understand and deal with life one needs to be a hands on mechanic and not give your responsibility to specialists and remove yourself several stages from experience, reality and responsibility.

The quality of life deepens as one is immersed directly in the maintenance of responsibilities.

Now, this philosophy has some relationship to the Talmud and to Talmudic living, we are sure. But that's not where we are heading today.

At hand, we have a book to comment on, What is Talmud: The Art of Disagreement, by Sergey Dolgopolski.

This book is about some aspects of the Talmud as filtered mainly through two media: (1) an introductory work to the Talmud by Rabbi Izhak Canpanton (d. 1463) and (2) several 20th century post-modern philosophers.

The author makes grand and sweeping claims that are way beyond the scope of his 273 page dissertation. He claims to uncover the essence of Talmud (not the Talmud) and the nature of disagreement exposed therein. He proposes that he has done this through reference to a handful of random Talmud texts and closer attention to that student's manual by Canpanton.

Now, Mr. Pirsig would not be happy to hear about this approach. Dolgopolski shows no interest in getting his hands dirty taking apart the actual engine of Talmud texts. He's given over much of the responsibility for knowing how the vehicle runs to third parties. And true, he does read the repair handbook and parse it with vigor.

But yikes, I would not claim to be able to write a book about, "What is Motorcycle" based on reading about the machines and closely examining the maintenance manual.

There is an extensive literature about Talmud out there - libraries of books - rishonim, achronim, philosophers from the middle ages to the present, apologetics, and then the scholarship of the German wissenschaft and modern academic Talmud scholarship in the US and Israel. None of that seems to be of more than passing interest to Mr. Dolgopolski.

And lest we forget, the subject of argumentation is one part of the personality of (the) Talmud. I dunno. Many of my friends know how to disagree about things. I would not proclaim that to know how they argue is to appreciate their essences.

Oh yes, one more thing. Talmud that we know, with or without the "the", is central to the definition of a religion called rabbinic Judaism. Dolgopolski cares not a whit to look at that characteristic of the corpus. He dissects a study guide and proclaims he has control of the essential knowledge of a rhetorical system, its religion omitted.

Canpanton may be quite an astute educator, perhaps even a philosopher. Yet, his voice is one of many in the history of ideas that runs through the sea of Talmudic discourse and reasoning. His may indeed be a, "radical reaffirmation of the traditional sources in terms of their authority and their rationality." But we sure don't prove that by stipulation alone.

And you know, even if the repair manual is really faithful to the machine, I still prefer to know that the man who wrote the manual and the man using it and working on my BMW -- that they have actually ridden the machine themselves and felt the wind whistling through their hair.

So if you want to read a book about a manual about (the) argumentation in the Talmud, this may be the perfect volume for you. It doesn't get much more Romantic than that.

If you want to know the Classical feel of acceleration up a mountain on a sleek well-tuned bike, you won't find that here.

After Magritte: Ceci n'est pas une blog

2009-11-29T14:24:00.004-05:00

We cannot believe that we never posted anything about Rene Magritte, especially about his "Treachery of Images" series most famous for his this is not a pipe painting circa 1929.

(We do hope that 2009 is not a reprise of 1929.)

So first, that is not a pipe in our blog logo photo at the top right of this page. It is a cropped and reduced digital photo of an original oil painting of us smoking a pipe, which we posed for in circa 1973.

And second, this is not a blog. This is the image of a blog. And a blog is the image of an idea. And those ideas that you may find here are normally images of other people's thoughts, images and representations, occasionally interspersed with some of our own original brainstorms.

Last, we always obey our own commandments here: Though shalt not be profound, foremost among them. And we try to heed other people's wisdom of the ages, such as Thou shalt not take seriously thine own press releases. But those too are only images of guideposts. And that was not philosophical.

P.S. Should we not ask, as is our wont, Was Rene Magritte Jewish? According to one unsubstantiated post, he was half Jewish. We are not convinced. We gather from our handbooks that he was not a Jew, that he was baptized and practiced the Catholic rite as a youngster. His art has little to no religious content. Ceci n'est past une juif.

Times: Kabbalah brought Jesus Luz and Madonna together

2009-11-28T22:36:00.000-05:00

Here is a celebrity and her boyfriend at a Jewish mystic's tomb in Israel.

Now, the Times is not a gossip sheet, nor is this blog interested in such mundane matters as celebrity pairings. But if Kabbalah is involved, well that is a whole other story for us.

...Jesus Pinto na Luz, who has two younger brothers, moved frequently as a child, especially after his parents split when he was almost 5 years old.

“I grew up with many ups and downs,” he said. “I also saw the beauty of people who were living an intellectual life and also people who were humble and had nothing.”

As a teenager he pursued modeling and acting, working odd jobs, including as a salesman at a surf shop in Ipanema.

“When I was a teenager, I thought I couldn’t do nothing in my life,” he said. “I felt very hopeless. And then something started to happen.”

He studied Buddhism and yoga and an ex-girlfriend introduced him to kabbalah. “I’m just looking for something to make me strong, and kabbalah has given me that,” he said. “I’m looking for something to make me comfortable and happy in my life.”

In 2006, he spent six months in New York, living with an aunt and learning English.

When he met Madonna, also a kabbalah devotee, last December, she had been divorced from the filmmaker Guy Ritchie for one month...more, "For Madonna’s Boyfriend, Fame by Association"...

QB Tim Tebow and John 3:16 and now Hebrews 12:1-2

2009-11-28T19:56:00.000-05:00

This week Tim Tebow has on some new verses, Hebrews 12:1-2 -- rubbing his religion on his face and in our faces again. This blogger is one Hebrew who opposes such public religious pronouncements on the field of sport, as sponsored by a state university, see below...

We have the greatest respect for Florida quarterback Tim Tebow as an athlete and as a humanitarian. He sets a great example for all of us.

Just one tiny little thing Tim.

You had inscribed for all of us to see during the championship game last year in the black glare block under your eyes the reference to "John" under one eye and "3:16" under the other.

We know you mean this to be an affirmation of your faith. But, Tim the verse is a bit of a put down to us Jews.

The implication of that New Testament verse you cite on your face is that we who do not believe in Jesus will perish and will not have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

That Bible text does not include us to say the least.

So how about next time considering another reference to wear under both your eyes during a nationally televised game?

How about Deuteronomy 6:4 -- just to even things out?

By the way, we still think you are great.

//repost//

Is Shlomo Sand Jewish?

2009-11-28T19:35:00.001-05:00

No, Shlomo Sand cannot be Jewish.

By his own definition in his recent book, the Jewish people is an "invention" which a person cannot be part of, an imaginary entity which has no claims to any particular peoplehood and an invented fantasy with no legitimate reason to have established the Jewish State of Israel.

Ironic that Sand is by all of the definitions which he rejects, definitely a Jew and quite an enigmatic part of the Jewish people.

Sand teaches at an imagined Jewish university which presumably pays him in make-believe shekels and lives in that fictional Jewish state and speaks a concocted Jewish language.

The Hebrew version of his unfortunate book (In English: "The Invention of the Jewish People") was a best seller in the Israel which he derides.

The Times has an appropriately quizzical account of the book and its author.

We never know what to make of one of our self-hating brethren who relishes his notorious obnoxiousness for no purpose other than his own self aggrandizement. We make note of the sad cultural fact and move on.

D'Souza's Evidence: Is there life after death?

2009-11-28T19:06:00.000-05:00

Newsweek reviewed Dinesh D'Souza's new book (Life After Death: The Evidence) which answers the question, Is there life after death? Yes, there is, he says.

...D'Souza takes it as given that we are all consumed with wondering what will happen to us after death, the way all Europeans were in medieval times, and D'Souza himself still is. Believers, of course, need no convincing on the subject of life after death, so D'Souza must address himself to skeptics, who presumably have made their peace with the expectation of personal annihilation. Skeptics may object to D'Souza's mode of argument, which is to state a proposition, present the evidence for both sides with an elaborate if spurious show of impartiality, and proceed briskly to the conclusion that his own preference is obviously the winner. But on some level, D'Souza believes, even skeptics would like to be convinced...

Update: We add a few of our own observations now that we have read the book. What comes through in it is a great energy and intellect with a triumphal mission to fulfill. Look at me, says the author. I am literate and know philosophy, biology, physics, biology, neuroscience, sociology, psychology, ethics and more. And from each discipline I can find evidence to support my belief that there is life after death. EVIDENCE. And in the end, in 16 pages this author proclaims his belief in Jesus' resurrection as the most compelling evidence.

The book is not an honest treatise. It presents argumentation and rhetoric, innuendo, clever insinuation and sophistry and yet not a single shred of evidence.

This book will dazzle and comfort the believer with its citations of dozens of learned and scientific tomes. We do not think the book is meant to convince the searcher, nor will it serve that purpose.

All said and done, this effort reminds us once again that Christianity took up the single area of religion that Judaism had elided - the mystery of death - and built upon that with a simple narrative of a dying and rising savior - a powerful world wide religious empire.

Some of us Jews are occasionally wondering how this happened - how we had the nearly exclusive franchise to Western religion and watched as it slipped from our grasp, based mainly on a tale of life after death.

Tzvee's Talmudic Bookshelf

2009-11-27T12:23:00.000-05:00

Talmudic scholarship for your holiday reading enjoyment!

Is God a laissez faire anti-regulation Republican?

2009-11-27T10:13:00.002-05:00

After sending a professor friend of ours an email about an op-ed about Judaism that he wrote, we got back an acknowledgment, "Thanks for your comment, a worthy challenge ---"

Actually no, the email was not meant to be worthy or a challenge. It was us sending our opinion with no foundation or basis to the writer who published his opinion without any foundation or basis. If that qualifies as a worthy challenge, then indeed we have lost the last thread of serious discourse in religion.

On the global theological front, The Bergen Record reported three stories today that together have made us ask, Is God a laissez faire anti-regulation Republican?

1. God has done nothing to regulate the sexually abusive abominable behavior of his Catholic Priests. A new report from Ireland is astonishing.

Child-abusing Irish priests got church's protection The Record

2. God has done nothing to prevent 77 deaths in storms during the Hajj of his Muslim worshipers.

Hajj pilgrims continue path after deadly floods The Record

3. God has provided no moral beacon of regulation for his Jewish trafficker in human organs.
Newstracker: Alleged kidney broker snagged in NJ corruption sting faces Dec. 8 court date The Record

Accordingly we ask what indeed is God's political affiliation these days?

Perhaps he once was a liberal democrat and now has reverted to his conservative republican roots.

Times's Kristof: God is Not Dead (At Least Not This Year, in Some Books)

2009-11-26T09:07:00.002-05:00

Kristoff seems to like “The Evolution of God,” by Robert Wright.

The Religious Wars
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Just a few years ago, it seemed curious that an omniscient, omnipotent God wouldn’t smite tormentors like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. They all published best-selling books excoriating religion and practically inviting lightning bolts.

Traditionally, religious wars were fought with swords and sieges; today, they often are fought with books. And in literary circles, these battles have usually been fought at the extremes.

Fundamentalists fired volleys of Left Behind novels, in which Jesus returns to Earth to battle the Anti-Christ (whose day job was secretary general of the United Nations). Meanwhile, devout atheists built mocking Web sites like www.whydoesGodhateamputees.com. That site notes that although believers periodically credit prayer with curing cancer, God never seems to regrow lost limbs. It demands an end to divine discrimination against amputees.

This year is different, with a crop of books that are less combative and more thoughtful. One of these is “The Evolution of God,” by Robert Wright, who explores how religions have changed — improved — over the millennia. He notes that God, as perceived by humans, has mellowed from the capricious warlord sometimes depicted in the Old Testament who periodically orders genocides.

(In 1 Samuel 15:3, the Lord orders a mass slaughter of the Amalekite tribe: “Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child.” These days, that would earn God an indictment before the International Criminal Court.)

Mr. Wright also argues that monotheism emerged only gradually among Israelites, and that the God familiar to us may have resulted from a merger of a creator god, El, and a warrior god, Yahweh. Mr. Wright also argues that monotheism wasn’t firmly established until after the Babylonian exile, and he says that Moses’s point was that other gods shouldn’t be worshiped, not that they didn’t exist. For example, he notes the troubling references to a “divine council” and “gods” — plural — in Psalm 82.

In another revelation not usually found in Sunday School classes, Mr. Wright cites Biblical evidence that God (both El and Yahweh) had a sex life, rather like the Greek gods, and notes archaeological discoveries indicating that Yahweh may have had a wife, Asherah...more...

Best Buy's Muslim Happy Eid Ad

2009-11-26T08:54:00.003-05:00

They had Hanukkah menorahs all over their ads last year. We think this is good and normal. Bravo Best Buy.

Best Buy's ad pleases Muslims, upsets critics
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO The Record SPECIAL FROM THE DETROIT FREE PRESS

DETROIT — A Thanksgiving ad by Best Buy that wishes readers a Happy Eid has upset some critics but pleased American Muslims.

Eid al-Adha, a Muslim holiday, happens to fall this year on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the one of the busiest times of the year for retailers.

In the ad, Best Buy says to "Shop Thanksgiving Day at BestBuy.com," according to a copy posted on Crunch Gear.

Right above in smaller print, it says "Happy Eid al-Adha."

Some protested the ad on Web forums at Best Buy's Web site.

"Clearly the liberal/PC culture in your corporate offices is biased against Christians and traditional American values," wrote one poster.

Muslim-Americans welcomed the ad, seeing it as a sign they are increasingly part of the American fabric.

"Thanksgiving and Eid al-Adha are now sharing the same spiritual and social space," Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement Tuesday.

Best Buy spokeswoman Erin Gunderson defended the ad, saying "Best Buy's customers and employees around the world represent a variety of faiths and denominations."

CHE: Twitter Infiltrates the University Lecture Hall

2009-11-25T20:06:00.000-05:00

I had a student send me an email during class recently. I had offered the class more extensive feedback on essay assignments to anyone who asked for it. The student shot off from her laptop an email to me with that request a minute later.

I asked the class to take it easy on laptop use during class - or I might ban note-taking and laptop-using. During earlier decades I used to forbid pen and paper note-taking during some classes. I told students they will remember everything that I say - so they don't need notes. I wanted to see faces, not the tops of heads, during class.

CHE writes about two professors who allow students to submit questions via twitter during their lectures. Interesting idea - I guess. Actually, the article is a bit unfocused. I had trouble extracting 140 coherent characters to quote from it...

The moment is telling. Opening up a Twitter-powered channel in class—which several professors at other universities are experimenting with as well—alters classroom power dynamics and signals to students that they're in control. Fans of the approach applaud technology that promises to change professors' role from "sage on the stage" to "guide on the side." Those phrases are familiar to education reformers, who have long argued that colleges must make education more interactive to hold the interest of today's students.

The unanswered question, though, is whether that theory can work in practice, in a room packed primar ily with 18- to 22-year-olds who can seem more interested in high grades than in high-mindedness...more...

Hey! Tzvee is on Twitter....

Buddhism's Gift to the World: Mindful Meditation

2009-11-24T08:15:00.000-05:00

We practice mindful meditation and can say that it can greatly improve your life. From the Times...

Lotus Therapy
By BENEDICT CAREY

The patient sat with his eyes closed, submerged in the rhythm of his own breathing, and after a while noticed that he was thinking about his troubled relationship with his father.

“I was able to be there, present for the pain,” he said, when the meditation session ended. “To just let it be what it was, without thinking it through.”

The therapist nodded.

“Acceptance is what it was,” he continued. “Just letting it be. Not trying to change anything.”

“That’s it,” the therapist said. “That’s it, and that’s big.”

This exercise in focused awareness and mental catch-and-release of emotions has become perhaps the most popular new psychotherapy technique of the past decade. Mindfulness meditation, as it is called, is rooted in the teachings of a fifth-century B.C. Indian prince, Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha. It is catching the attention of talk therapists of all stripes, including academic researchers, Freudian analysts in private practice and skeptics who see all the hallmarks of another fad.

For years, psychotherapists have worked to relieve suffering by reframing the content of patients’ thoughts, directly altering behavior or helping people gain insight into the subconscious sources of their despair and anxiety. The promise of mindfulness meditation is that it can help patients endure flash floods of emotion during the therapeutic process — and ultimately alter reactions to daily experience at a level that words cannot reach. “The interest in this has just taken off,” said Zindel Segal, a psychologist at the Center of Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, where the above group therapy session was taped. “And I think a big part of it is that more and more therapists are practicing some form of contemplation themselves and want to bring that into therapy.”

At workshops and conferences across the country, students, counselors and psychologists in private practice throng lectures on mindfulness. The National Institutes of Health is financing more than 50 studies testing mindfulness techniques, up from 3 in 2000, to help relieve stress, soothe addictive cravings, improve attention, lift despair and reduce hot flashes.

Some proponents say Buddha’s arrival in psychotherapy signals a broader opening in the culture at large — a way to access deeper healing, a hidden path revealed.

Yet so far, the evidence that mindfulness meditation helps relieve psychiatric symptoms is thin, and in some cases, it may make people worse, some studies suggest. Many researchers now worry that the enthusiasm for Buddhist practice will run so far ahead of the science that this promising psychological tool could turn into another fad.

“I’m very open to the possibility that this approach could be effective, and it certainly should be studied,” said Scott Lilienfeld, a psychology professor at Emory. “What concerns me is the hype, the talk about changing the world, this allure of the guru that the field of psychotherapy has a tendency to cultivate.”

Buddhist meditation came to psychotherapy from mainstream academic medicine. In the 1970s, a graduate student in molecular biology, Jon Kabat-Zinn, intrigued by Buddhist ideas, adapted a version of its meditative practice that could be easily learned and studied. It was by design a secular version, extracted like a gemstone from the many-layered foundation of Buddhist teaching, which has sprouted a wide variety of sects and spiritual practices and attracted 350 million adherents worldwide.

In transcendental meditation and other types of meditation, practitioners seek to transcend or “lose” themselves. The goal of mindfulness meditation was different, to foster an awareness of every sensation as it unfolds in the moment.

Dr. Kabat-Zinn taught the practice to people suffering from chronic pain at the University of Massachusetts medical school. In the 1980s he published a series of studies demonstrating that two-hour courses, given once a week for eight weeks, reduced chronic pain more effectively than treatment as usual... more

//repost from 5/08//

Mozart's entire musical score free on internet

2009-11-23T09:58:00.000-05:00

Now this is a good use of the Internet. Thank you HP - we saw The Magic Flute at the Met not long ago.

Mozart's entire musical score now free on internet

LONDON - Mozart's year-long 250th birthday party is ending on a high note with the musical scores of his complete works available from today for the first time free on the internet.

The International Mozart Foundation in Salzburg, Austria has put a scholarly edition of the bound volumes of Mozart's more than 600 works on a website http://dme.mozarteum.at.

The site allows visitors to find specific symphonies, arias or even single lines of text from some 24,000 pages of music.

"We had 45,000 hits in the first two hours...we would not have expected that," programme director Ulrich Leisinger told Reuters in a telephone interview.

A user who types in "Pamina" from Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute" will see the music for all five arias she sings, as well as critical texts discussing those passages.

The version appearing on the internet is a digitised copy of the New Mozart Edition published by Barenreiter, of Kassel, Germany.

It is considered the "gold standard" of Mozart editions and Leisinger said Barenreiter was paid US$400,000 ($581,550) for the digital publication rights.

The financial backing came from the Packard Humanities Institute of Los Altos, California.

"We hope we will be able to convince other people besides us to present their original materials online as well," he said.
- REUTERS

Times' Frank Rich on Palin, Israel and Blankfein and the Cross

2009-11-22T10:55:00.001-05:00

We like Frank Rich's writing and his politics. He is for the people we are for, and against the people we are against.

He also is not the most rigorous thinker on the planet.

Consider this week how he works Israel and Goldman Sachs into his column on Sarah Palin.

Rich sticks these two random Palin planks into his column this week:

Her argument for why “Jewish settlements” should be expanded on the West Bank was that “more and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead.” It was unclear what she was talking about — unless it was the “rapture” theology that requires the mass return of Jews to settle the Holy Land as a precondition for the return of Christ.

Then he interjects this offensive comment, for reasons that we cannot fathom:

Her ever-present booster Continetti, writing in The Weekly Standard, suggested that she recast the century-old populist outrage of William Jennings Bryan by adopting the message “You shall not crucify mankind upon the cross of Goldman Sachs.”

Rich can surely tell us that Palin may be for settlement expansion because of her religious delusions. But Rich ought to make it much clearer that her rapture delusions are dangerous fringe theologies that all of us ought to fear and denounce.

We also think it is utterly appropriate to denounce and oppose the rapacious greed of large Wall Street firms who have made-off with much more money than Madoff and yes, under shady and questionable totally legal programs.

However, Rich certainly ought to make it clearer that it is wrong, incendiary and dangerous to apply crucifixion imagery to a Jewish-founded and Jewish-led business like Goldman Sachs.

Rich sure as heck seems to want to show us that he does not understand religion or the power and danger of some nasty religious ideas and images.

Locus, Focus and Davening

2009-11-20T08:37:00.003-05:00

The core of Jewish liturgy is davening - the recitation and performance of Jewish prayers. With my class at JTS we now are exploring the ancillary aspects of the rituals, namely the places of davening, synagogues, and the states of mind associated with davening, namely kavvanah, forms of concentration.

This raises a question: to what degree are locus and focus ancillary and in what respects are they part of the core of the process of davening?

And more interesting. There are a variety of visions of the function of locus and focus at work in the system of davening.

Once you start to look for them, you see in the world of liturgy the distinctive conceptions of the minds of the various distinctive archetypes of the minyan of daveners.

Times: In Talmudic move lesser Rubashkin charges are dropped after conviction on greater charges

2009-11-20T00:10:00.000-05:00

The Talmudic principal here is "קים ליה בדרבה מינה"...if you eat stolen food on Yom Kippur you are not liable for the theft... the greater offense subsumes the lesser.

Iowa: Immigration Charges Dropped in Raid Case

A federal judge dismissed dozens of immigration charges against the former manager of a kosher slaughterhouse, at the request of prosecutors who won a conviction last week against the man on multiple counts of financial fraud. Prosecutors said a conviction in that case would not affect the term of the man, Sholom Rubashkin, because he was convicted of the charges with the longest sentences. Both cases stemmed from a raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in Postville in May 2008. Investigators found 389 illegal immigrants working at the plant.

///hat tip to yochanan iii///

Is Mitch Albom Jewish?

2009-11-19T23:24:00.001-05:00

Yes, best selling author Mitch Albom is a Jew from New Jersey.

We heard him speak tonight at the Jewish Theological Seminary in NYC. He reprised many vignettes from his book in what we have to say was more of an artistic performance by an outstanding talent than a lecture.

In the give-and-take after the lecture-performance, we told Albom that we use his book in our liturgy course at JTS to help define the archetypal organizer of the contexts for prayer. And we praised him for that narrative in his work which casts the rabbi and minister as archetypal figures. He was gracious in insisting that he set out to tell stories, not to mold archetypes, and yet he humbly thanked us for suggesting that he had done more.

As we said on 11/08/09:

We highly recommend his latest work, Have a Little Faith: A True Story By Mitch Albom. This is a truly penetrating book about prayer as lived in the lives of two apparently average but actually utterly saintly clergymen.

Americans have run away from their clergy for decades. Albom's writing will warm your heart and bring tears to your eyes. And it will restore some of the lost dignity to the profession of the cloth.

The Reb, Rabbi Albert Lewis was Albom's hometown rabbi in suburban New Jersey. As a boy and young man Albom did all he could to avoid the rabbi. Now he seeks out the man's insights into life.

Henry Covington is an African-American Detroit pastor, a reformed drug dealer and convict who preaches in a decaying church with a hole in its roof and the heat turned off. Albom seems concerned about how to trust him, yet determined to find ways to understand and to help him.

The book description says, "Albom observes how these very different men employ faith similarly in fighting for survival: the older, suburban rabbi embracing it as death approaches; the younger, inner-city pastor relying on it to keep himself and his church afloat."

"Albom and the two men of God explore issues that perplex modern man: how to endure when difficult things happen; what heaven is; intermarriage; forgiveness; doubting God; and the importance of faith in trying times."

The book seeks God and finds him incarnate in the beliefs and actions of two ordinary men of faith. It's a profound theological statement and number one on the New York Times best seller list.
You can read a little of the book here...

Mitch Albom's web site is here.

How to know if you are a good golfer

2009-11-18T19:58:00.000-05:00

Irv Dubow was one of the regulars that I used to play golf with at the Braemar Golf Course in Edina Minnesota.

He was pretty good. Sometimes he shot in the high seventies. One day about fifteen years ago I asked Irv how I would know when I could call myself a good golfer.

Irv thought for just a moment and said simply, "After a round of golf, if you talk about the few good shots you had, you are still a beginner and should not consider yourself a good golfer.

"However after eighteen holes of golf, if you talk about the few bad shots you had, then you know that you are no longer a beginner and accordingly you may consider yourself a good golfer."

Instantly I knew what he meant and that he was a sage.

I've wondered a lot since then if the same goes for life in general.

Rabbi Ariel on davening with women: "Men are not able to concentrate..." and the same applies to golfing

2009-11-18T19:54:00.002-05:00

I knew that eventually the real reason would come out for the construction of the mechitzah in Orthodox synagogues and for the prohibition of women in leading prayers.

A Ramat Gan rabbi has cleared it all up for us. It's to compensate for a problem that Orthodox men have, "Men are not able to concentrate..."

Ramat Gan chief rabbi slams 'radical feminist' egalitarian minyanim
Matthew Wagner , THE JERUSALEM POST Feb. 19, 2008

Ramat Gan Chief Rabbi Ya'acov Ariel said Tuesday that it is prohibited according to Jewish law to take part in an "egalitarian" or "partnership" minyan that permits women to read from the Torah or lead the congregation in prayer.

Ariel was reacting to the publication of The Guide for the Halachic Minyan by Michal and Elitzur Bar-Asher. The guide is a compilation of halachic sources on how to integrate women into prayer while at the same time purportedly adhering to all Orthodox strictures.

This is not the first time Ariel has proscribed attending partnership or egalitarian minyanim. Last summer, in a series of articles, Ariel publicized his opinion, specifically mentioning the Shira Hadasha minyan in Jerusalem, one of several "halachic egalitarian" minyanim in Israel. "These minyanim are the product of radical feminist agendas," said Ariel. "And they are a departure from normative Judaism."

Jewish law prohibits giving women the opportunity to read publicly from the Torah out of respect for the community [kvod hatzibur]. Ariel interprets kvod hatzibur to mean "distraction," including sexual distraction.

"Men who come to the synagogue to pray do not want to be distracted by the prominent appearance of women," said Ariel. "I do not necessarily mean only sexual distraction, although that is a real possibility since too many women dress provocatively these days.

"Rather I mean that women attract a lot of attention from men, both intentionally and unintentionally, on many different levels. And this hurts the quality of the prayers because men are not able to concentrate as well..."

And the Times today reports that a similar concentration problem apparently extends to men golfers in Massachusetts (not necessarily Orthodox Jewish men).

Barred From Men’s-Only Event, Woman Sues Public Golf Club
By MARCIA CHAMBERS
Elaine Joyce, a champion amateur golfer, and her father were not allowed to play in a tournament at the Dennis Pines course because the tournament was not open to women....more....

It's clear then that men are not able to concentrate when a woman is around. //repost from 2/19/08//

Miami Beach's Fontainebleau Hotel: Solid Swimming Pool - Leaky Finances

2009-11-16T21:09:00.001-05:00

We were in Miami Beach to attend a wedding this weekend and had a chance to check out the high profile Fontainebleau Hotel mainly because it boasts one enormous swimming pool. We call it a great place to swim (~75 yards long).

But what is with those tall guards all over the deck and the open pool side cabanas with flat screen TVs? We wondered if this was a scene come to life from Woody Allen's film Sleeper. A friend observed that many of the guests looked like they were affiliated with shady elements, whatever that means.

And now we learn from the Miami Herald that although the utterly swank hotel has undergone in solid reality a total renovation, it stands on the shakiest of financial footings, as the owners teeter on the verge of bankruptcy.

Fontainebleau hotel's glitzy rebirth tarnished by debts
The Fontainebleau hotel's grand launch -- with fancy parties and lingerie models -- is a dim memory as financial challenges mount a year later.
BY DOUGLAS HANKS

A year ago, developer Jeffrey Soffer presided over the most lavish hotel opening in South Florida history as supermodels, pop singers and movie stars celebrated his $650 million renovation of the Fontainebleau Miami Beach.

Just weeks from his 41st birthday, the real-estate heir joined family friends James Caan and George Hamilton in the VIP section for a private concert by Mariah Carey. Victoria's Secret models sashayed in a televised lingerie show hosted by Heidi Klum.

Exactly 12 months later, the $5 million weekend bash seems a mere financial footnote as Soffer confronts mounting challenges at South Florida's largest resort.

Among them:

• Contractors claiming more than $60 million in unpaid bills.

In court papers and interviews, contractors say they were ordered to work double- or triple-time to get the Fontainebleau ready for the Nov. 15, 2008, Victoria's Secret show, but that the resort stopped paying its bills at roughly the same time.

• The possibility of bankruptcy.

For the first time, a senior Fontainebleau executive on Saturday said publicly that bankruptcy was an option under consideration as the resort tries to reduce its $660 million construction loan and settle the contractor claims.

Last year, the investment arm of the Dubai government paid Soffer's ownership group $375 million for a 50 percent stake in the Fontainebleau. That deal gave the Dubai entity, part of Nakheel Leisure, the option to take over restructuring negotiations if there were problems with the resort's loans.

Days ago, Nakheel exercised that option, said Hamza Mustaffa, Nakheel's managing director. On Saturday, he said Nakheel and Soffer were waiting for recommendations from a restructuring consultant on the next step, and that one of the options could be a Chapter 11 filing that would let the resort continue operating while forcing creditors to negotiate.

``We haven't made a decision right now if we're going to file, or if we're not going to file,'' Mustaffa said.

While Nakheel has officially replaced Soffer as the lead negotiator with Fontainebleau's banks, Mustaffa said Soffer remains in charge of the hotel and that the partnership is solid.

``This is not us saying, `Jeff, you're out and we're in,' '' Mustaffa said while praising Soffer's role as the Fontainebleau developer. ``We've been working together.''...much more...

Times: Hobbes' Leviathan Complete in Hebrew Causes a Stir?

2009-11-16T02:01:00.000-05:00

Some questions came to mind when we read this learned virtual roundtable discussion about the new and complete edition of Hobbes' Leviathan in Hebrew.

First, what do the previously missing passages say that is so challenging and how have Israelis, religious and secular, responded to them?

Second, is there an unexpurgated Arabic translation and how has the Arabic reading public, religious and secular responded to that? (If no, then how would we imagine that they would respond?)

And also, has this book really caused a stir in Israel or is this little debate colored by wishful hype emanating from the Shalem Center?