Common Sense Jew

Authenticity!

2008-06-01T23:50:00.000-07:00

CSJ is having personal issues, that I will not mention. I will say however that I am beginning to see a little light, a little crack in the impenetrable wall of darkness that has overtaken me. If I would be alone in my wanderings, I would feel pretty bad. I see, however, that there are a very large amount of young orthodox jewish people with extreme issues with religion. They feel dissatisfied with the way their lives have turned out, and they are searching for something special, something that will take their pain away and clear away the cobwebs of doubt and distrust. I recently found some great open minded people to just talk to. I feel so much better. I find that if you know someone has a very hard life yet manages to keep the religion, family and job together, especially if that person is unusually upbeat and refined, his/her opinion is worth a MILLION times more than any rabbi's or for that matter anyone else who styles themselves as counselors. There are some things which can only be expressed by people who have survived the crucible and come out smiling. Note that most people seem to think that they have had a super hard life, so objectivity is very important when looking for someone. I generally head to people who have incredibly hard lives by anyone's estimation and still wake up every day smiling. There is truth and knowledge in the world, but very often we look for it in the wrong places. Rabbis and parents as well as friends like to think of themselves as all knowing but the fact is that they are not. I believe that true knowledge of god and of ourselves is hidden, and is only revealed to those who choose to seek it from hell and back. This is why the rebbe (I forgot which one) told his chasidim to seek blessings after his death from "Any jew with the tattooed numbers (of Auschwitz) on his arm and also the marks from tefilin". How many chassidim do you think actually listened to him or seek blessings from these jews now? That is the only true judaism that can be passed down from the heart. Rav J.B. Soloveitchick mentions many times that he is frustrated by his inability to pass on the true essence and as he calls it "the experience of judaism". That is coming from a man who arguably affected more orthodox jews with his warmth and wisdom than any other in recent times.

Subliminal messages

2008-02-01T06:07:00.000-08:00

Many times when I converse with other homo sapiens I get this itchy feeling that they are not realy listening to what I am saying as much as using the conversation as a forum for their own brilliant opinions. For my part I view conversation as a vehicle to get to know others better/blow off some steam, and sometimes even learn something. The best shmoozers are the ones that kind of relax and let the conversation flow. Unfortunately, I have found that sheeplike religous people are (in general) very boring to talk to. They espouse their own ideology and allow it to overly color their daily communications. One of my favorite jewish blogs, On the Mainline, posted a very amusing olumeinu cartoon illustrating subliminal messaging. His article also led me to this jem, created by a fundamentalist christian: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0014/0014_01.asp

OMG, I laughed so frikkin' hard. This type of thing begs the question: What sane religion uses these techniques to propogate itself? Unlike this Christian, Jews are not supposed to prostelize those outside their own faith, but what about those already jewish? It seems that this sort of thing is given the green light. It creates a culture of religous ignorance rather than rational, senseible devotion.

Only in NY...

2008-01-17T16:36:00.000-08:00

these kids are such ballers.....http://gawker.com/346248/bronx-science-kids-organize-for-something-other-than-mit-college-fair I wish that my schools would have had such a hard ass student body....

Scream

2007-10-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

weird. this. chick. is.
a performance artist of sorts. she walks in the middle of a quasi road and just starts shrieking. 3 things.
A. she has a great shrieking form
B. she has the guts to actually do it
C. its just 2 funny!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtiMpyROj74

Shocking!

2007-10-06T22:18:00.000-07:00

Two Cnn stories caught my eye. One was about some 8th graders who had sex in class. No, not in a classroom; this was done in CLASS. Teacher steps out, kids feel a little rowdy, and hey wahddaya know? Two of them start porkin' each other in front of the rest of the class. Extreme Sex Ed? Da Vinci Codesque Orgy? Anal Arithmetic? Or just sex being actively glorified to a pageant-like state. The next was some idiot hick priest whose empty church (not an infrequent phenomena) needed filling. He decided to send out fliers advocating "red hot sex" (as a topic in the church. )Apparently this ruse worked but people got upset at the lurid way he depicted the lawrds message. Whoopee. More sex selling. Sex in church, sex during class, sex for suppertime! I got nothing against getting some, but this stuff is jest nasty and overboard. If intimacy is a staple of good relationships, and it becomes non-intimate, what happens to relationships? Here's some links:
http://www.click2houston.com/news/14284329/detail.html
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2007/10/06/tn.sexy.pamphlets.wate

technorati

2007-09-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

Technorati Profile

Shakin' It

2007-09-30T12:18:00.001-07:00

Five types of lulav shakers there be:
1. The Obnoxious Poker- This shaker is in his shaking groove and doesn't care if his sharp palm branch pokes you in the arse (repeatedly). Seen legally, this should be a Federal offence with 5-10 years of a different type of poking going on in maximum security.
2. The Blind Shaker- Old/Kiddy/Crazy/Visually impaired people should get SMALL lulavs as they tend to have a rough time with lulav manuevering. In legal terms, he who provides LARGE lulavs to these types should face a misdemeanor with a stiff fine. (jail time for repeat offenders)
3. The Prophetic Shakers-I have been religous my entire life with no pleasant teenage interludes, yet I cannot understand the look of pain on these intense shakers' faces. A deeply religous experience is NOT supposed to look like a baby delivery. Also, look for wild gyrations of body and lulav. sheesh! cool the holiness!
4. The Mainstream Shaker- Shows some interest in what he is doing . The most normal of shakers. Generally dads who have not been kept up all night, older teens,and younger adults fall into this most normal of shaker categories.
5. The Bored Shaker-I must admit that I fell into this category this succos. Look for listless shaking accompanied by a zoned out look. Included in this category are dads who have been kept up all night, Younger "cool" teens, and people who are in general depressed numbnuts. (My shul has like a HUGE percentage of the listless shaker.) My excuse? LSAT nerves. I'm taking the damn thing tomorrow, Monday October 1st, at 8:30 AM. And yes, I would consider myself a depressed numbnut right about now.

Columbia and the Ayatollah's Mouthpiece

2007-09-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

Ahmedinajad and his political family were described to me by an Iranian expatriate as pimps who will do anything for more power,money, etc. Ahmedinajad is also well known for his oppression of women and basic civil rights. He is a two-faced populist, giving one face to hard-right extremists in his country,and quite another to the incredibly gullible people here in the US. Giving this lowlife a basically open forum is giving him exactly what he wants and is enabling what is (at best) a severely irresponsible country in the mid-east to continue its efforts against peace. The ARAB countries view Iran as a threat-if they are worried, we definitely should be. Things are unfortunately heating up again in the mid-east; an all out war is definitely a possibility. Israel's bombing of the Syrian nuclear site, America and England sending planes and other weapons to Israel and supposedly nuetral/friendly arab regimes. The only way I could justify Columbia's decision is to invite someone like Prince Bandar and another high-ranking Arab official to question Ahmedinajad. President Lee Bollinger is just not cut out for this position, and this whole thing just smells very bad. Ahmedinajad will probably just do his little two step. To quote Deborah Lipstadt, author of "Denying the Holocaust"
" What is wrong, I am repeatedly asked, with hearing a different perspective?...This is precisely the deniers' goal: They aim to confuse the matter by making it appear as if they are engaged in a genuine scholarly effort when , of course, they are not."
Dr. Lipstadt in this quote is explaining the reason she will not debate Holocaust deniers. She refuses to grant any sort of legitimacy to the deniers' lies and avoidance of crucial evidence in place of what they want to espouse. Ahmedinajad, as a Holocaust denier, understands the power of being granted recognition by scholars. Does Columbia's President truly understand this? I doubt it!

Black Hat Gospel

2007-09-02T18:56:00.000-07:00

Here's some black hat gospel:

Halleluyah! Praise The Felt! Come yea faithful, rub your collective faces in my pure rabbit fur borse! Feeeeeeeeeeel the holiiiiinesssssss! yeahhhhhh....I WILL Purify thee in my holy sweaty band! I will shake the dust of ages on your unworthy faces! LET my brim Dip Low Into Your Soul! Who will spend 175 bucks on something they hate ! Praise thee for thy sheeplike obedience! Come forth, come forth! I don't care what you've got on under me, make sure that glistening crown of compressed mammal detritus shines forth! MO, Chareidi, Yeshivish, Baalebatish, BT....I want you all! WHO will step forth for the LAWwrd..

pant...pant...whooosh...anyone can hand me a blog rant towel...thank you...

Woof

2007-08-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

i love dogs. i have never been seriously afraid of a dog in my life, excepting the case of my former crazy recluse neighbor who raised big german shepherds. he would go out with like 5 at a time. ooohhh! i also like cats, squirells, aardvarks, horses etc. i do not like rats or pigeons. i do not like michael vick. i would like to set all 10 of this neighbors' dogs on his enormous hairy calves. let's see you dodge that offence, mike!

Israeli Military Disobedience

2007-08-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

In Israel, practically everybody is in the military, has been in the military, or will be in the military. Whenever I hear that an israeli soldier had something bad occur to him , I don't think: Hey he knew the risks etc., rather I think "Oy, a jewish boy was hurt." This is because Israelis don't have a choice whether to be in the military or not. The draft is compulsory. If there is a war in the mid east, and it involves Israel, it is because they were directly threatened by some vicious arab country and they had to fight for survival. All these soldiers are heroes. I do not think of them as soldiers so much as mainstream israelis who put their lives on the line for everone else. Which leads me to this posts' question-Is the disobedience justified? Are these soldiers wrong in refusing to evict jews from Hebron? Or are they entirely within their rights as israeli citizens and jews to protest the governments' expulsion of their fellow jews? Here's a quote from ARIEL SHARON I saw posted on Arutz Sheva-
“In contrast to the days of exile, it is not only the right, but the obligation of every Jew, in a Jewish democratic state, to stand up and warn his government, through passive resistance, of the disaster that it is bringing upon all of us. What Jews could not do in Germany and Poland before their extermination, they must do in their own country. They have to rise en masse and resist.”
-Wow.

First Post

2007-08-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

I have never blogged before-but I have read other jewish blogs and enjoyed them. Ahem. First post.....Idea..........yah, here we go. First I'd like to comment about jewish blogs. Many are not very serious, but focus on the author's fascinating life. Others proclaim themselves as less than serious, and joke about jewish life in general. Some say ooooooh I'm super-serious and my opinion has weight. There are nasty blogs that attack individuals/judaism with happy abandon. There are self deprecating blogs that mock the blogger himself. There are blogs that attack this type of judaism or that, blogs that rant and rave. Most are full of crap. My blog will be a common sense jewish blog. (Surprise!) In it I will attempt in a humble kind of way to address serious and less than serious issues with the panache and vision befitting my humble self and my humble opinion. Humble, humble......mumble. I will try to keep it humorous yet pithy. For those of you who don't know what pithy means, I think it means to the point. Scoring 99 on my 6 hour Lit. Regents only gets me so far. All this leads me to my first post....