NOTES TO Working docname =scaa4*. , Final docname =sc_aa4.* These notes to be Deep6'd to scsaaa4*. =============================================================== (aa4-1) RSC says, the world is like a wedding. There's much in that -- it really is "deepest depths", to invoke a phrase which he much overuses. Ahove, he uses that metaphor only in passing. The notion of incarnation, as presented by HIK and PVK, is an exegesis. And to my mind it is primarily incarnation, not the brit milah, that is the meaning of BRIT_Kha Sh_Ha:_TeM_Ta B_BShaR_NU "YOUR covenant which YOU sealed in our flesh" (Metsudah Siddur) (aa4-2) This is Milton, referring to a parable of Jesus, "that one Talent which 'tis death to hide" And it is PVK, speaking on discovering the purpose of one's life I recall hearing RSC speak of -- If you have something which you can do, and no-one else can do it, you should do it. At the time I was trying to no avail to pull myself out of the mud of Moshav Modi'in, to go to Zenith Camp. Sometimes that seemed to me like a great conflict of loyalties. It is of course a conflict of loyalties that forces a nervous breakdown. (aa4-3) I am quite tired of this superstitiously pious pro forma use of the phrase which I sometimes paraphrase '(Cows Defend Us!)' Surely this is a violation of the commandment to not take the name of Supreme Being in vain. Like, Heaven gave humankind free will, and we darned well better accept it, and take responsibility for making our own decisions, with all the attendant risks of choosing wrong. The phrase should be invoked only in those situations when one would wish -- and only for the good of others, I would say -- to be blocked from the exercise of one's free will, regardless of the cost to oneself. Traumatizing a child, for example. As Jesus said, "better his arm should be cut off and cast into the fire than that he should offend against one of these." Incidentally, everyone knows that the one thing which R. Shlomo would not tolerate, was that anyone should hit their child. I was heard him get very angry about that, in the Bet Knesset. My mother once said, 'A child cannot comprehend that.' (aa4-4) [ in addition to myelf, of course. The chap who is like me lives in Khazdigistan and sells Pffennusse cookies on Saturday afternoons in front of the neo-Colonial courthouse ] { OK, here's the answer to the right-hand problem -- ie, the problem that, you haae to take your right hand off the comptuer to his the Carriage return -- and since there are two extra keys to the right of your right hand, you can put in back in teh wrong place. And the slightly raised j key is not raised enough to be noticeable. so the answer is simple. A foot pedal, just like with a pipe organ in a cathedral Second choice is to split the space bar in ahlf, an use hae for a CR Most easily the right half, hit by the right thumb.} (aa4-5) { This sounds like the Sufi slogan, from HIK I assume: "Democracy of the ego and aristocracy of the soul."} (aa4-6) [ Because the bride is a horse, of course. ] (aa4-7) "In that great getting_up morning (Fare thee well, fare the well)" USA Negro spiritual. (AA4-8) you know. [ This is a spare 'you know' that I just found. Put in back in its proper place and win 3 free boiled ptit patois or a free fresh-brewed cup of last summer's coffee. This is the 4-Ming phase of the month. "Kill me a chicken / send me the wing / You know I'm working but I don't make a thing / It's just ride, ride ride ride." (Railroad Bill, U.S. folk song.) Or in another version: "You know I'm working but I don't do a thing, / It's just ride, ride ride ride." ) (aa4-9) And PVK says, one never IS a Sufi, it is a horizon toward which one is sailing. (aa4-9a) Steve Keyes used to say: "Yup, nope, that ain't it." That was in '64 when I was crashing on the lawn at Antioch College. (aa4-10) But this is really a tautology. Meshiach is not a person, it is the limit of the process of incarnation, the ultimate purpsoe of tzim_tzum. Up at Ascent in Sfad the Instant Frumies from Frat Houses sing "We want Meshiach now", but they are wrong. Because when Meshiach comes the whole game is over. And likewise , if you think Jesus is Meshiach, and think he was just down here on a sort of Exploratory Visit when he got himself in trouble with those old prunes up on Temple Mount, and somebody called the Romans , which is what we had to invent Shmuel haKatan to say you must never do -- because cops is cops, goyische cops that is, and once you take off their choke_chain it's all over but the belching -- then don't be so darned eager for that Second Coming, because ain't gonna be nobody going out for free Susni when that happens - - I mean, like Jesus said, "store up treassure in heaven", because they don't take American Express up there. (aa4-11) And then put it all on your shoulders and go down to Miami Beach and try to convert the lobsters, because Reb Nachman has here just redefinied incapacitating clinical depression. I say, deal with your problems one at a time, one a day, starting with the easiest. HIK says, in Mastery Through Accomplishment, even a little victory will give you strength to attempt to overcome a slightly bigger challenge. PVK seems to suggest: Our problems are the tests we need to advance on the spiritual path. Heraklitus says: Every animal is driven to pasture by a blow. Joe E. Lewis says: I have been rich, and I have been poor, and believe me -- rich is better. (aa4-12) I don't really know what to try to make of this. This is maybe Jesus parable: He drives the little demons out of the house, and bigger demons see it say, hey, a nice empty pad boys, let's move in. And it is maybe PVK's citing the Buddhist maxim, "A sentinal at the doors of perception." And then PVK's analogic metaphor of the semi_permeable membrane. It is certainly gvurah, and gvurah is that book, "When I say No I feel guilty." In PVKs type of terminology: One wants to be open to the higher being of all people -- that is the after_bracha to the Amidah, minhag Sfard, But at the same time, one must shield oneself from their egos. Because -- "sad to say" as R. Shlomo would say -- this "wicked world" -- as PVK would sometimes say -- is filled with people who would supplant your ego, and your chance of self_actualization, with their ego -- and for the most trivial of gains, like one extra vote for President, out of hundreds of millions. Or a few thousand dollars more profit to buy a new car. (aa4-13) I am not clear what 'love' means in this context. Sounds frighfully Christian. The sort of thing one hears in Encounter groups from people who wouldn't lend you a dime on their way into a Mercedes Showroom. It's a 'romantic' notion, goes best in paperback novels. Bugger Young Werther. Emotive reductionism. Enough of that experiment, let's get back to pre_arranged marriages. And this is that song in 'Fiddler on the Roof' "But do you love me." It is a nearly meaningless question, at leat after one has gotten the chick to bed. (aa4-14) That is of course what a few decades after this lecture came to be called a 'win-win' solution. (aa4-15) Renatia Nachman translated 'harmony' as 'shalom', in the Sufi invocation, because 'harmony' is a Greek concept and term with no Hebrew equivalent. So 'peace', as RSC reconceptualizes the term, is the ultimate harmony. (aa4-16) One might try again to note, before its too late, that the so_called 'peace process' which the USA is continually trying to force on Israel in order to curry favor with the Arab oil_states, who are trying to curry favor with their local terrorists, who are trying to show enough achievements that whatever Arab secret service is subsidizing them will continue to do so -- is built almost entirely on lies. Or 'constructive ambiguity' as they say nowadays. Jimmy the Grin's Camp David Accord went through only because it put off all the difficult questions to the Never_Never. Or "final status talks" as they say. (aa4-17) The English, who raised hypocricy to an art form, had a saying: "An ambassador is someone who is sent to lie abroad for his country." (aa4-18) This is interesting, because it situates peace within the domain of truth. The domain of truth in Sufi terminology is Haq . Al-Hallaj identified so completely with that realm, that he exclaimed 'An al Haq' -- I am the Truth -- for which he was crucified. Something that the Arabs picked up from western civilization. I was once at the Bostoner Rebbe shul in Boston on Simchat Tora, Ma'ariv it must have been, and heard the Boster Rebbe making much of 'Emes'. (aa4-19) So anyhow, there I was up on the edge of the Golan, having walked up from HaOn after sitting by the Kineret under bushes for the summer, eating dates and bananas and drinking from the Kineret by the shale rocks -- so anyhow this guy finds me, and asks me where I'm from, and I ell him, though I was trying to run away from there, for fear they would take me to a madhouse, which they did not, and so he asks me, Why did you tell me if you did not want me to know, and I told him, I find it very hard to lie, and he said, Me too. So he drove me back to HaOn, where some very good people had been waiting in the parking lot to meet me for several hours while I dithered, and they walked me back to my flat, and I recovered, because anyhow Zenith was over for that year. (aa4-20) In Israel, although my lodgings have tended to be on what some might regard as the simple side: a straw chick-chack shack at Ein Hemed a storage garage at Campground Bet Zayit a 2_and_a_half room reinforced_concrete bungalow at Mevo Modi'in a 3 room concrete bungalow at HaOn and presently a nicely pine_panelled shipping container at Campra I have been fortunatae in having, in all cases, magnificent expansive vistas -- at Ein Hemed, the presence of springs at Bet Zayit I could watch the clouds blowing over Har Nof, and look out beyond Ein Kerem to the Judean Hills at Mevo Modi'in one could look all the way to Mediterranean, and in the first three houses, in two of which I lived at different times, there is a wonderfully fresh sea breeze blowing over the springs of the region at HaOn, on the Golan shore of the Kineret, one can look across to Zfat and Mt. Meron and Campra is at the base of upper Val Blenio -- one becomes at home under the mountains at UNM I was in a 2-room Adobe in Placitas, on a dirt road. at UCSB I was in a small trailer in the hills. One could glimpse the Pacific. at Mew Buffalo it was a tipi, a tent, and a 1-room Adobe. (aa4-21) Well, yes and no and mostly no. Supermarkets make their food so attractive it almost looks like plastic, but doesn't taste as good. What gives light to the soul, in food, is what Aristotle might have termed, as he did for animals, its virtu. The food that gives light is food that tastes like what it is. No artifical flavours, of course. But also, it must be absolutely fresh. That means, in general, that it should not be picked until you are ready to eat it. Once I went down to the Rio Grande with Hunter. He caught a trout, made a fire, and cooked it. It was very good. I always say, the way to cook corn is: Put a kettle of water on the fire, walk out to the field, and pick the corn. (aa4-22) Well, restaurants make quite a point of making the food look attractive, but I really can't see the point of it. Most restaurant food tastes like nicely-flavoured cardboard. (aa4-23) This matter of beautifying the mitzva would seem to apply primarily to mitvot done for the benefit of heaven, and much less to mitvot done between people. I'd rather have a hundred dollars given in a boorish way, than a thin time smothered in sweetness and lifht. (aa4-24) [ Williamsburg is an ultra_orthodox section of Bwooklyn. Although it is incongruous that a neighborhood of eastern European tradition and maybe refugee and descendent Jews bears a colonial name, the explanation is simple: as one can see from their old_fashioned dress, many are descendents of the original English Puritans, who failed to notice that the neighborhood had changed.] (aa4-25) Nu, for entertainment like this you should not merely be giving tzdaka -- or if they're really undeserving, it is not tzdaka but charity -- you should also be paying gagwriters' fees. And don't forget a percentage of the royalties, when this story is published. And be sure it's an adequate percentage. You see, identical twins is a hereditary genetic trait. And the Bible commands us to procreate until we have a son and a daughter. So of course each twin had at least one son and one daughter. And this is now 30 years later. For us enlightened types, 30 years is only the time you are taking minimum to get your Ph.d or graduate psychoanalysis before you even consider finding someone to marry. #L2 A. was, if not precisely gay, anyhow a homo. I said to him, You are not homosexual, you are English. There is a distinction. However subtle. R. Zalman once said: Judaism disapproves of homosexual acting_out. I said to A.: I bless you yous should find someone stupid enough to marry you. And all of us too, we should all find someone stupid enough to marry us. #L1 But with the ultra_orthodox, how many generations can you get into 30 years, #L2 as_it_is_said (by RSC, told by Chana_Leah, zl'b): How do you know you are at orthodox wedding. The bride is pregnant How do you know you are at an ultra_orthodox wedding. The mother of the bride is pregnant. How do you know you are at a Conservative wedding. The rabbi is pregnant. How do you know you are at a Reform wedding. The rabbi and both the brides are pregnant. #L1 So therefore, let us say for ultra_orthodox 30 years is 2 geenerations, and let us assume these two Willaimsburg brothers already had children going to the chuppah, because why else would they be schnorring -- So therefore this is minimum 2 (brothers) x 2 (sexes of children) x 2 (because each child is born identical twins) x 2 (because by now each child of the twins has had children) x 2 (because they have had at least one child of each sex) x 2 (because each chld is born idential twins, because that is an hereditary genetic trait ) x 2 (because each child of each child of the twins has just had children, although they are maybe still too young to go out schnorring, unless someone gives a little extra to buy prams and hire a Filipina to push the prams -- actually, quite a few Filipinas) -- So already we are up to 64 Williamsburg identical twin schnorrers, so if you stay in a hotel in Williamsburg for a week holiday, you must also bring enough spare change, in a wheelbarrow. But even so this is cheaper than staying in SoHo or Tribecca or Parimutual or any of those other fashionable boutique hotels in Manhattan, and also without the need to confront all those moral ambiguities, like the fur-lined leather handcuffs in the minibar next to the Perrier water. (aa4-26) So do not as the Yuppies who do, who make much show of sympathy and empathy with timpani, saying, I feel your pain; for they do but sit down in your mud_puddle and squish the goldfish. But rather, look stupid and just say, Yiye b_seder, it will be ok, so let's go out for a hotdog and maybe some beer, there's a sharp chick behind the counter. (aa4-27) So go fly a kite; it will give you something to hold on to when you get up there. So do not as the Bushies do, saying, you can do it Churl, you don't me, and anyhow I'm meeting my stockbroker for lunch at Le Meriden, where we will help French amputees get off the dole and back on their feet by eating frogs' legs, Sorry Charlie. Or words to that effect. I'm not sure that the Official Zenith El Cheapo Coffee does not lose a bit of its zip after about a year. I shall have to sweep the floor , perhaps that will enhance its flavour. (aa4-28a) No; don't know. (aa4-28b) Oh. (aa4-29) I have no idea what that passage meant. I think it's time to get quite critical with RSC's teachings. Otherwise we may never get the meaning out of them. He was a wonderful person, and at least as a Lakewood student had the reputation of being one of the great thinkers, or at leat students, of is time. But when people ask me, tell us a teaching from R. Shlomo, I can't think of any. Which don't prove much. But I think its fair to say that his teachings are deceptively smooth. And also, I think he was reachings out so far a a pedagogue to the lost tribes , that he conceptual structure got blurred. And again, being solidly commited to orthodox tradition, he teaches almost entirely as exegesis of text, and his texts are almost never identified except by the name of the Rabbi, so that does make it very hard to follow the logic of his exposition. so the first step is to reference those texts within each teaching in which they are used. (aa4-30) Adrian Gomez, who was Jewish, and married Little Joe Gomez, once remarked to me; When somebody sneezes, you say, Bless you. It they sneeze again, you say it again. If they sneeze a thrid time, you say, Go to hell. Where am I. Ok my feet are on Judah and Ninth. (aa4-31) [ Reference is most likely to an intersection in San Francisco, and least likely to the conquest of the allied tribes of Judah, and the 2nd_northernmost of the 10 Lost Tribes of the Shomron (presently located in Israeli_occupied Israel), (aa4-31a) It don't break my heart, because I have no idea what RSC is talking about here. There is an idea in both Jewish and Sufi mysticism, that whatever I do, affects the whole universe. Though not too darned much, otherwise I'd be drinking my before-bed gin_and_tonic out of a fire bucket. This is PVK's image of the ocean emerging as a wave. I mean, my gravitational field has an impact on the motion of the moon, but not that large an impact, so please don't ask me to have it gift-wrapped and delivered to impress your girlfriend. (aa4-31b) [ kvais ice cream has a taste of New Zeland kiwi, northern iceland icicles, and Australian desert dustberries, sweetened with hybrid lemons ] (aa4-32) Glad to hear it. I'll never get to that level, so I can go back to reading sci-fi and watching TV. RSC is continually setting the bar at maximum height; so one might as well give up trying the high_jump, go over to the broad_jump pit, and practice shallow dives for the 25_yard sand_crawl. I mean, if this is Reb Nachman I'll take a potatoe-chip ice-cream cone. With white-chocolate sprinkles please. (aa4-33) It seems to me that in this lecture RSC is simply hopping from one topic to another, as he reads through a text that hopes from one topic to another. But I don't know. I maybe pick up a point here and there, but I don't follow the lecture as a whole; for me it does not build to anything. (aa4-34) That is: Receiving the Torah is an ongoing process, not a fait accomopli. (aa4-35) Nonsense, says I. So ok, this is an attack from the Left on the Aristotelian Golden Mean, in =sc_aa5 the attacks from the right. Here it is overly frum who are said to be doomed to Atheist Hell, in AA5 it was the incomopletely enthusiastic. Both attacks reperesent the worst excess of hasidism, the sort of thing for which the mitnogdim opposed it, I suppose. Here hasidism appears as fanatically and exclusively zealous for mystic experience, intolerant of the middle road of the householder. Hasidism then becomes a sort of monastic or renunciate movement, disdaining the pleasures and everyday compromises of life in this world. (aa4-36) [ Only Pope Ratzinger knows for sure. Or maybe you were up there also, selling popcorn in the Heavenly Court during the Stenographers' Break. ] (aa4-37) [ Nay I take 5 minutes to decide. And make sure that if I do decide to sign on, they are selling a T-shirt in my size under the stands Look sports fans, religion is not a football game. When I was somewhat younger -- about 10 years old -- a classmae's parents took me to a Harvard--Columbia football game. During the game my classmate asked his father, which side are we on. I thought that meant, who are we supposed to root for. But it only meant, are we on the Harvard or the Columbia side of the stadium. ] (aa4-38) I'm finally realizing I should be embarassed. I seem to have crasehd a series of pep talks for yeshiva bochers. I was looking for a series of introductory talks on Judaism for people who lead normal lives -- not monks in a monastary where the only females are chickens, not rishis on a mountain top eating snow and grass -- folks who get up and go to work in the morning, and come back to their home and watch some TV, and maybe go to church or whatever we call it once a week. (aa4-39) More to the point, what is a dollar bill doing swimming. "Waiter, what is this fly doing in my soup!" "I believe it is the breast_stroke, Sir." You see, long ago the White Man's Burden brought western civilization to the heathen Chinee . And all the guys from New Yawk spoke of dollar bills as "fish". And the Chinese loved goldfish. So the Chinese realized they must adopt a monetary system to become white man's brethern and western civies, and so the heathen Chinee, not understanding English so good, took as their unit of currency, the goldfish.