Two questions on the Documentray Hypothesis from the Parsha

1) The 2 verses that describes Noah’s ‘olah’ use terminology of Sefer Yayikra. The term ‘rayach nichoach’ especially. It’s also a very abrupt shift – Elokim to Havaya for the Korban (korbanot always have shem havaya) and immediately beck to Elokim. Korban terminology, in the DH, is much later, from the P source, whereas the flood story is a classic ‘J/E’ couplet. These 2 verses are a problem for the DH.

2) When God re-establishes His covenant w/ Noah, the Torah exclusively uses the name Elokim. DH scholars see the 2 accounts of covenants w/ Abraham from next week’s parsha as being a J/E couplet; the brit bein habetarim being an E source, and Brit Milah from a J source. However, the Brit Milah episode is much more closely linked, textually and thematically, to the covenant established w/ Noah, which ostensibly is from a different source.

Considering that the flood narrative is ostensibly the neatest couplet in the entire Torah, the fact that the DH runs into problems even here can give a decent impression of the difficulties w/ the theory in general.

Happy or Pathetic?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. Partly because I’ve been insanely busy. And partly for another reason that’s been bugging me.

Living with ADD presents many challenges and opportunities. It means finding the best way to live and work and relate to those around you. Part of what makes it work is finding the right combination of pharmaceuticals, exercise, diet, etc.

About a month ago, I went back to a drug which I hadn’t used for a while called Zoloft, an antidepressant. For me, Adderall had the effect of helping me to focus, which meant that I could stay on tasks and control where I place my attention without overfocusing. It also had the effect that I became somewhat brooding and overly pensive. The Zoloft, which I take in a small dose, basically is a set of rose-colored glasses. Especially my interactions with others, a very crucial component of my job, improve because of this. It’s for that reason that I stay with it, even though I personally don’t mind being a bit too serious or grumpy sometimes.

I think that contributes to the fact that I don’t feel as agitated about issues, bothered by questions, etc. I don’t feel the same pressure to record my thoughts, and creative thinking itself is less a part of my life. It comes and goes.

On one hand, I really miss that part of myself. On the other hand, I’m on Zoloft, so even though I miss myself, it’s no big deal, ‘cuz the chemicals keep me happy, and because my professional life has improved. Everyone seems to like me better this way, except me. I think I sold out, but don’t feel bad about it (probably because of the drugs).

Part of me think that I’m like the guy from ‘A Beautiful Mind’; part of me says ‘get over yourself’.

I’m going to try to start blogging again. Steg – I still have your meme-request to contend with (though it’s SO 5 minutes ago), and I’ve finally finished the RSB”Y exposition but haven’t yet written it down in any kind of coherent form.

For the record, it’s not that I have no free time, it’s just that it hasn’t gone to blogging or reading, rather, to computer games and sports.

If my brain wasn’t taking a dopamine bath, I’d probably feel pretty pathetic.

Peter Berger's 'Heretical Imperative'

OK, I’ve finished Peter Berger’s Heretical Imperative, and though he makes some great points, it was generally unsatisfying. Probably because he reduces ‘religion’ to ‘belief’ and sees conflicting or untenable beliefs as the crux of modern religious ‘heresy’. This shouldn’t be too shocking from a person writing out of a Protestant milieu, but it’s a bit of a disappointment nonetheless.
     I was also disappointed in his description of the three ways for modern religion to engage modernity – what he calls the deductive, reductive, and inductive approaches. Respectively, and in a nutshell, the possibilities are reaffirming authority of tradition in defiance of challenges to it, secularizing tradition, and retrieving the experienced embodied in the tradition. I think there’s a fourth and even a fifth approach, and that there are crucial divisions within the approaches he outlines.
     He looks to 20th Century Protestantism as the original religious confrontation with modernity. He missed out on some great 19th century religious thinkers and responders to modernity, both Jewish and Catholic.
     Finally, I was kind of disturbed by his likening of the Protestant faith to the ‘Suffering Servant’ of Isaiah 53 for its willingness to be the first to confront religious dilemmas. Speaking as a Jew, I find it insulting that he suggests that the Protestants who were sitting in their seminaries in Germany working out responses to modern religious crises while Jews were being slaughtered by the millions are somehow ‘Suffering Servants’. Those poor theologians.
     In any event, any ‘overview’ book will be oversimplified, and he certainly provides some context for evaluating modern religious thought. For example, in his chapter on the deductive possibility, he describes the religious attitude of Karl Barth at length. I had never been exposed to Barth, so I couldn’t have known the degree to which R’ Y. B. Soloveitchik employs Barth’s religious categories.
     There are a number of great observations and ideas that Berger suggests, and some great one-liners, too. Here goes:

• On his venture from sociology to theology (xiii): What the “professional theologians” have done of late is not so inspiring that we unaccredited types must feel constrained to stand watching in awed silence.


• On man’s ability to transcend his situation(8): There are a thousand dull conformists for every Socrates…Of course modern man tends to think of himself and of his thoughts as the climax of evolution to date. In this he is no different from just about any preceding variety of the species.


• Plurality of alternatives is the core of the modern experience. If there are no option, then what is can be interpreted as what must be; in the modern condition, there’s less and less of what must be. Fate becomes choice. Destiny becomes decision.


• Religion begins as religious experience, which is not equally distributed. Therefore, the experience must become embodied by traditions, and by doing so brings the experience which braches ordinary life into ordinary life, which tends to distort. His predicament is that of the poet amongst bureaucrats.


• A fundamental distinction must be made between religious experience itself, and later reflection upon and attempts to understand that religious experience.


• On the danger of overcontextualizing and psychologizing religious experience (p.123): The final point is not that Marco Polo was an Italian – and, who knows, an Italian with all sorts of class resentments and with an unresolved Oedipus complex – but that he visited China.

Ultra Orthodox vs. Ultra Sound

After reading this article, I was reminded of a conversation that I had with a fairly well known and respected poseik, originally American, now in Jerusalem. He is of the opinion that it is forbidden for women to undergo ultrasounds while they are pregnant. His rationale is based on anecdotal evidence of stress caused by misdiagnosis, and some examples of cases where misdiagnosis resulted in unnecessary operations, from which the infant died. He felt that the potential costs far outweighed the potential benefits that may result from such a procedure.

Mind you, I am far from neutral on this issue. My oldest child was born with a very serious condition that was diagnosed in utero, and which allowed us to make all of the necessary preparations for the birth, which included prearranging a specific time for a Caesarean delivery so there would be no surprises, researching the condition, finding the right doctors, etc. Not knowing about it beforehand would have meant that my child wouldn’t have made it; babies with this condition didn’t make it until very recently, like the last 30 years or so. I was basically confronting this poseik with the fact that, according to him, my child should have died, and he did not deny that point.

Of course, he and I are both marshalling anecdotal evidence; it just so happens that my anecdote is sleeping peacefully in the room next door, so it hits a bit closer to home. Nevertheless, I think that his entire analysis is junk, and here’s why:

1. Ultrasound technology, genetic testing (amniocentesis), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are all constantly improving, medicine learns from its mistakes, and the threat of lawsuits, at least in the U.S. is a strong deterrent against cavalier diagnoses.


2. There are techies, and there are pros. There are second opinions. There is common sense. From my (now extensive) experience with the medical establishment, I know the value of doing the research and asking good questions. Whenever we learned about something new, we researched it on the web, and came back armed with all kinds of questions and ideas.

[Side story on this point: once, my oldest had a pneumonia – related to the birth condition – and wound up in the PICU. After the condition stabilized, my oldest’s lips were bluish. I asked the doctor about it, and he responded “Oh, that’s labial cyanosis”. I responded, “Labial cyanosis is Latin for ‘blue lips’; calling it a funny name isn’t going to satisfy me; what is going on?”. His next response was much more substantive and detailed. I’m glad I asked]

1. Did I mention the common sense thing? Whatever. I can’t emphasize it enough.

I don’t know the people who were victims of ultrasonic misdiagnosis; whomever they are, my heart truly goes out to them. But it’s essential to realize that they were not the victims of technology, rather, the victims of human error and human failure. If anything, it’s reason to turn the brain back on and try to make things more foolproof (though the quality of fools seems to be improving as well), minimize the potential for human error, and for God’s sake (really!) corroborate the initial findings with some other evidence!

Needless to say, that particular poseik didn’t get any more queries from me.
I would also add that his position doesn’t reflect the mainstream halakhic position, haredi or otherwise.

Lying in the Liturgy

There are parts of davenning which are simply untrue; maybe they once were, but they are no longer. Maybe they are rue for others, but they aren't for me.

Sometimes we can relate to them as prayers - not something we are, but something we aspire to be. But sometimes that simply doesn't work, either.

3 examples:
1) In tachanun, Nusach Adshkenaz says, from Tehillim, "With my tears I will soak my bed". I don't cry over my sins, and it seems ludicrous to beg forgiveness for those sins based on my
crying over them.
2) On Tisha B'av, we say a version of Nacheim which describes Jerusalem as being 'desolate from lack of inhabitants'. That's not Jerusalem's problem anymore. Most of the lament is relevant, but that part isn't.
3) At the end of bentching we say 'I was young, and I aged, and I never saw a righteous man abandoned or his children begging for food'. What if I have seen an abandoned tzaddik, or his children going hungry? Doesn't it happen?

So what's the conclusion? Skip? Change? Ignore?
As usual, the best solution seems to be the most common one - simply daven without kavvanah.

Leave it to the Jewish people, eh? Heirs of the prophets!

Monkey Suits

Yesterday’s Daf noted the curious fact that in Babylonia, the Rabbis were ‘metzuyanim’ – distinguished, i.e., by their clothing. There are two reasons given for this fact: one by R’ Assi, which is apparently rejected in favor of R’ Yochanan’s opinion.

R’ Assi believes that it’s because Babylonian Rabbis aren’t b’nei Torah. Thus, they must distinguish themselves by their clothing to compensate for their lack of other distinctions.

R’ Yochanan corrects him, stating that Babylonian Rabbis are no less distinguished, but since they are not in their ‘place’, they cannot rely on reputation alone to exhibit their distinction, thus they must dress in a distinguished manner.

Since I perceive myself as a ‘Eretz Yisrael’ style – Rabbi in ‘Babylonia’, this Gemara really resonated. I long to be where there’s no need for a rabbi to be self-conscious about his appearance, or to distinguish himself by anything but knowledge and understanding of Torah.

For what it’s worth, though I can think of all kinds of people to whom R’ Assi’s judgment applies, it may simply be a side-effect of the phenomenon that R’ Yochanan points out; there may indeed be distinguished Rabbis in Babylonia, but their distinction would remain unrecognized if they didn’t mark their distinction with their clothing.

Morality and Polygamy

Hirhurim has a post wich debates certain aspects of polygamy, and discusses whether we hold like the Taz, who suggests that if the Torah permits something explicitly, we have no right to forbid it.

I posted a while back on this issue, and thought that I demonstrated pretty conclusively that the Torah is anti-polygamy, and suggested reasons why it was permitted then.

What would the Taz say about someone who took an Eishes Yefas To'ar? What would we say to an Israeli soldier in a defensive war who committed rape and then took her home with him?

My Zaydie, the Swiss-Army Jew

My grandfather was a Rabbi, but of a different mold. He’s more of what I call a ‘Swiss-Army Jew’, or a ‘Utility Jew’, or a ‘One-Band Jewish Band’, or a ‘Jew-of-all-Trades’. He was a shochet, a mohel (though I hope he never got the two confused), a chazzan, a ba’al korei, a shammas, and a gabbai. I don’t know if there was any system or ideology or method to his Yiddishkeit, and I don’t think he had any formal schooling in anything, but had this incredible, visceral Jewish ‘gut’, a strong vindictive streak, and a fantastic Jewish sense of humor (which could be terribly bitter and biting) that served as the vehicle to teach some very valuable lessons. His entire context was Jewish, and he succeeded in translating it, and appreciation and love for it, in some way, to those around him. Had he wound up in Brooklyn like his contemporaries, I doubt his contribution would have compared to what he accomplished ‘out-of-town’.

He decided to open a shul in America. He went out to the suburbs, found a Jewish neighborhood with no shuls, and opened his ‘shtiebl’ which was also his home. I still remember his old balabatim with their taleisim like scarves jingling the change in their pockets on Shabbos morning.

At the same time, he was a closed book. I never had much of a relationship with him. I remember that he once showed me a Satmar responsum on yarmulke size to show me that the small ‘sroogie’ that I was wearing was inadequate. Of course, he didn’t show me the first siman in Igros Moshe, Orach Chaim, which the Satmar teshuvah was ridiculing, which takes a completely different view of the ‘shiur’ of a yarmulke. He was generally hard of hearing, and often chose to be even more so. In general, our conversations went like this:

Me: Hi, Zaydie, how are you?
Zaydie: Four O’clock.

His own father died in the Spanish Influenza epidemic that decimated Europe in the late 1910s, when Zaydie was 7 years old and the oldest of 4 with one on the way. He never knew a normal family situation, never learned to show affection, and then emigrated with a young family to a different continent, language, and culture. These barriers were too much to overcome, especially since in my youth and teenage years I was too immature or too ‘cool’ to appreciate him. He passed away during my first year in Yeshiva after high-school.

There’s one story that happened with me which, for me, characterizes much of who he was and what his attitudes were. When I was in 3rd Grade, my father went away on a business trip (yes, the Rabbinate sometimes skips generations, sorta) and instructed me to call Zaydie every night to review the psukim that I had learned in Chumash that day. My class was learning the Parsha of Miketz, specifically 42:21, where Joseph’s brothers confront their own guilt for not having listened to Joseph ‘be-hitchanenno eileinu’. When reviewing w/ Zaydie, I translated this latter phrase as ‘when he found favor with us’. Zaydie corrected me, stating that it means ‘when he begged use’. I suggested that the root is from the word ‘cheyn’. He insisted that it was similar to ‘tachanun’, a concept that I wasn’t yet familiar with.

When my father returned home, he asked for a report on my Chumash-reading skills (and you still wonder how I became a Rabbi?). Zaydie informed him that I ‘don’t know teitch (translation)’. My father informed him that if that’s how I translated it, then that’s how I learned it.

That Shabbos morning, Zaydie (who had retired and moved, and attended a different shul) saw my Rebbi at Shacharis. He approached him after davvening and said, ‘You’re my grandson’s Rebbi?’. After an affirmative answer, Zaydie went to the bookcase, took out a Chumash, opened it to the verses that we had studied a few days earlier, and said to my Rebbi, “Sit down.” He pointed to the passuk and commanded, “Read”. I can just picture the scene - Zaydie simply overpowering this poor Rebbi (who undoubtedly deserved it) by sheer force of personality, in a way that no act of physical violence could.

Sure enough, my Rebbi mistranslated the psukim as I had. After correcting the Rebbi, Zaydie suggested that since the expertise in matters Jewish required from him constituted the ability to read and translate perhaps a half-dozen parshiyos and one Mesechta of Mishnayos, he really ought to make sure that he knows it.

Zaydie didn’t make us laugh (we didn’t get his jokes).
He didn’t make us sing (certainly not after the hearing started to go; he was utterly tone-deaf). He did make a Seder on Pesach night, though, but it was unspectacular.
I can’t really say that I loved him. I barely knew him.

But man did he leave an impression.

An Ashkenazi Ambiguity

Thrice daily, in Alyenu, those of us who speak with the Ashkenazic pronunciation of Hebrew say, ‘le-sakein olam be-malchus Shakai’.

[what follows is a cute ‘Chassidishe’-style vort, which is clearly wrong as a plausible explanation of the text, but nonetheless expresses some truth]

This vocalization can be understood in 2 ways, depending on the two ways to spell ‘le-sakein’ Hebrew. It can mean either

to repair the world into the Kingdom of the Lord

to endanger the world with the Kingdom of the Lord

Motivation to establish God’s dominion on Earth is quite the double-edged sword…