============================================================== FOOTNOES (sa) TO SC_AA6 -------------------------------------------------------------- (aa6-1) ---------------------- [ GLOSSARY: Anti_ -- Mitnogid, one opposed to hasidut . Sometiomes termed 'Litvak' . Legalist, or rationalist maybe, in contradistinction to ostensibly mystic. Nowadays the kippa sruga crew fill that roll. Though I've seen some clean-shaven blackhats I wouldn't trust with a banana peel. It's a common myth thath hasim got kavana and mitnogdim ain't. Mazaltov. At the Shabat Modi'in minyan -- the Bet Knesset comfortably holds a minyan, more than that and I'm up on the roof, Rufus. So anyhow, I saw that the younger generatin would sometimes daven outside, so I did so, pretending to be a shomer. I mean, on the Moshav someone ought to. As it is said, how many Modi'inniks does it take to do shmira: Two -- one to get shot and one to call the Radbash. Well, that was the good old days. Yakov Rottenberg was a first-rate shomer -- always alert -- I would often wake at night, and go out for a walk on the Modi'in Road past the "temporary" re-inforced concrete bungalows -- it is said that a man must have 4 ells to himself, room enough to swing as if he were pivoting around a nail placed on the floor between his big toe and the next one, of the right foot I think, with arms outstretched -- that is the posture of a whirling dervish -- I think it is to make room for aura -- so I say, that delimits the number of people who can daven in a Bet Knesset -- Anyhow, someone who maybe wanted Yakov's job for his uncle, found something in his past, took it to the real police -- Mishmar haGvul, who are tough cookies but good people, I could step on their toes and they'd probably invite me for Shabat dinner followed by a soccer game, and kill me with harif and arak -- and so forced his resignation, so he went back to his vinyard, which is nicely tended -- and they say he makes great wine, though it ain't cheap -- So I say, whoever was the brains, so to speak, behind that better not lead weekday davening, because the U.S. Constitution says, and the Amidah makes the most of it, no man shall bear witness against himself -- U.S. Constitution says, "shall be forced to" , but I say, don't do it nowhow -- leave confession to the Christians, and begging forgiveness too -- Jewish way is swallow your guilt, wash it down with a shot of arak, take a cup of Dutch Courage, which is black coffee, hot, and then use those two fires to start Fixiing as much as you can whatever did wrong, as it is said, "who makes light from the fires " (so ok, it says, who makes lights from the fire" -- I mean, why did Shalom Aleichem invent Tevye if not to add a new technique to halachic exegesis, Cresus. "Ghenghis Khan, he could not keep / all his knights away from sleep" -- as fine a seduction song as has been written since the chicks let Bob Dylan get away with singing "lay lady lay+, I guess because they saw he had a good heart behind an ingrown concsience -- descendent of a rabinic family as I reccall hearing someone say -- Janet Karon, out in Santa Barara in '688, , is/was a relative - - In those days one could go out for a Sunnday drive on a motorcyle and stop in for a cup of tea and bit of a boff and think nothing of it -- what mattered was what one was reading -- or writing -- or so we say -- But I digress.} ------------ He says, but you knew you have to meet me this morning, why didn't you go to sleep early. SANZER looks at him, he says, did I know I'll wake up this morning? (aa6-2) [ and if that ain't Zen, I'll give back my chopsticks ] (aa6-3) [ Incidentally, it should go without sayint that in the good old ddays, "w2hen men were men and women were girls", masculine pronouns were used by default for Deity, in a gender-neutral sense. So when I put such pronouns in half-quotes ('scare quotes') this is my interjection, it does not represent RSS's inflection nor implication. As for capitalizing pronouncs or whatever they are predicated of Deity, that's my personal frumishkeit. "Or something." ] (aa6-3) And this is the traditional Sufi saying, often quoted by PVK, "I was a hidden treasure desiring to be known." and also it is the traditional Sufi saying (which also I know, as yet anyhow, only from hearing PVK quote it, often, in recorded lectures) "It was for love of you that I created the world." And also it is the notion of tzim-tzum. We must assume a substantial cross-polinization, most likely in Babylonia, between Judaism and Islam, and especially between mystical Judaim and Sufism. And presumably in Egypt too, maybe before Alexander the Great trashed it, as_it_is_said , "Never send a child on a man's errand" (USA folk-saying, 1800's, I guess) I mean, this dude goes to Persoplis and his troops burn down the geatest library in wesetern civilization. And they say, even PVK, he sits in his Tent and says, Geez, I didn't know thy was gonna dot that, Cat. Better he should have stayed home in Macedonia and got it on with the neighbors' goats. And then the Makabees could have raised chickens and sold herring, and that brown-nose in Modi'in who put the first pig on the altar could have lived to see his wife make him cuckold with the milkman, Sam. But I digress. } (aa6-5) Speaking of Sufi analogues: Shahabudin David Less once said, that if he were asked to give a definition of Sufism, he would say, it is the way of the heart (that's best I recollect, this was a passing remark, not recorded. I did not agree with it at the time, but now -- maybe ) Cave Dave once said, "If you don't pray from the heart, ain't no way He can hear you." Shahabudin is Jewish -- it was maybe his sister, Rebecca Less, who was at Haverat Shalom while she went to Harvard, in teh 70s -- and on reflection I assume Cave Dave must have been too, though I never asked him. Vicky Woskoff used to say, "When you're in love, the whole world is Jewish." As_it_is_said (USA, 1900's) "It's a small world." And as it is said, "You know you're assimilated when --- (here follows a list of 100 ways to know it over Stroganoff) -- "less than half your ashram is Jewish." But I digress. ] (aa6-6) { And one day I came out of the tipi having earmakred (as PVK sometimes says) an inight with the phrased image -- ' hoever HE throws off the ropes by which men try to hold him } [ And so this my be the souirce of the name r. Joel Glick, a nephew of r. shlomo, took for his Old city Yeshiva: Chochmat haLev ] (aa6-7) { Don't know, Joe. First of all, let's leave sex out of this. Some of the heathen Greeks, as I recall, said that the quality of man is good and of woman is evil. Clean and good and dirty and evil I suppose. Some homos can't forgive women for menstruating. Or bearing diaper-wearers either. Mazaltov Greeks, and you can take St. Paul with you down to Hades. There is much talk of the Judeo_Christian heritage of western civilization, tho mostly only by goyim. "One cow, one rabbit", as the gypsy said proposing that he contribute the latter to a co- operative stew. I'd guess though that Christianity is a lot closer to Egyptian and Greek cults than to Judaism. Only Christianity puts on a tie and sportscaot, so nobody sees how weired it is. So it seems to me, especially if the Sufi way is the way of the heart, that the heart must by definition be entirely good -- -- the realm of Divine Emotions in Sufi talk, and in Spinoza too I think. Also, we tie the gartel about the waist -- a nice dash of symbolism from the Manichean heresy -- which means that the heart is on the good side of that 50-yard line -- well, size 50 waisst, fatter than that and let her go Lesbo. So maybe evil is from the lower chakras. But we just said sex can't be evil, so all we got us left is the poopoo chute, the mudalara chakra. Which is apparently so bad that the yogis don't even admit it exists, most of them. Well, I think that's where all my evil dreams come from, and flipouts too -- you know, after drinking darned near a bottle of wine and assorts shots of schnaps, the better to honor the Sabbath, I crash out without brushing my teeth and Oy -- the Four Hoursemen of the Apocalypse ain't got nothing on this boy -- Alev was running around Zenith. Sometimes she would say "I'm a little angel" and sometimes she would say "I'm a little devil." Well, if she's the culmination of Sabbatean Heresy, we could have done a whole lot worse. Eg, a USA Republican. I mean, most of us, offered a free ticket to a Turkish wife_swapping party, "would rather be in Philadelphia" (W.C. Fields, pasim. and get on downtown, Clown. But I digress. } (aa6-8) { I'm glad you asked that question. See, I was about to pay 200 dollars to go on this boat that was taking crew to sail from Boston to the Virgin Islands -- I told Nancy, and her immediate reaction, we were sitting on her couch, was to wrap her legs about me -- she must have forseen something - - so anyhow, just before letting him stow my gear down in the hold, I ask him, have any members of your crew had blue-water experience -- and he said, "I'm glad you asked that question", and I thought, I am too. I had literally gotten cold feet -- a chill came into my feet -- so anyhow, that evening, as I recall, Nancy did not seem particularly surprised to see me -- nor even overjoyed, but we did have a drink of sherry I suppse -- So anyhow -- the question was, what happens if I have evil thoughts. Now first of all, I read somewhere some high-ranking yoga woman, one of their contemporary saints or swamis or gurus or salaami's I suppose, tho those are Islam -- wrote, if one of those little pocket-books of instant wisdom they used to sell until the Me Generation crowded out all the heads -- she wrote, "My son, in the Kali Yurga, evil thoughts are no sin." As_it_is_said, "Brother, you can't go to jail for what you're thinking -- nor for the wolf look in your eye -- you're only standing on the corner watching all the girls go by." The point is, in Judaism, what matters is what you do, not what you think or feel. Or would you rather be Grinnin' Jimmie, who to date has done more to betray Israel than anyone -- tho it ain't for their lack of trying -- with his confession, "I have commited adultery in my heart" -- I mean, who gives a french-fried rat patootie, for this we pay you two hundred thou plus perks to be President, Resident? -- But I digress. } {aa6-9a} WE'LL BE BACK IN just ten minutes, more or less, TO TELL YOU WHAT METAUMTIM means, folks, but first - It means, "Meet me in St. Louis, Morris." It means, "Meet me in the Borse", of course. It means, "'Meet me in St. Louis?' -- Phooey." ----------------------------------------------------------------- (aa6-9b) I'm closing up, you know. [ Note to the Reader: I'm writing this on a laptop in Honest George's Restorante in Campra, which is above Olivone whihc is above Biasca in Switzerland and from mid July to mid August there is Zenith Camp and so you should stop by because on Shabat we only need 9 more to make a minyan but Honest George just typed something over my shoulder while I was trying to find a Swiss beer worth drinking, Menkin. I mean, if some of you hadn't been so rude to the Brits a bit back, Jack, we might have something better than Makabi, Jacobi. So mail me some Nesher, Jessup. And a laptop computer too; she's making aliyah, Ha_ha_ha. That was am in_crowd joke, Bloke. But I digress. } (aa6-10) Oh nothing out of the oridnary; sprouting a bit of horns and tail and snorting a dash of the old brimestone , whatever that is, whch comes in handy for starting fires on a damp day so we can all roast marshmellows before going to the Saturday Night disco at the Tent of the Golden Calf -- nothing unkosher, we wait for 3 stars, and nothing unsnias -- I mean only a Philistine would mind thongs. Funny you should ask though; what happens to you when you're evil? (aa6-11) I suppose this is RSC's exegesis of the notion of 'klipot', but I don't know becase I lack practically all Jewish education. (aa6--11a) RSC's teachings are a lot less obvious that R. Shlomo's manner, so very friendly and uncondescending, had lead me to assume. I tried always to go hear him when he was in town, and that seemed to put the world back together again for a little while, but now I wonder if I ever understood even 2 sentences in a row. (aa6-12) { Well let's not get carried away by all this. I mean, no need to rush out the door and sign a i7 or 77 year indentured servant contract is there. Quite enough to try to "do the right thing" if and when you bump into a decision point. And this is Tolstoy, "Hew, famous pacifist, what should I do if I am walking home from the Club and I meet a tiger on the street." "Do the best you can, it happens rarely." And also tghis is J.L. Austin: "Let us worry less about the True and the Beautiful and pay more attention to the dainty and the dumpy." I mean, it's not as if every morning I get up, put on my shining armour, get on my white horse, and ride forth to serve Heaven until suppertime. Most days it's quite enough to wake up, find a bit of clean linen, pour some coffee in the cup rather than on the rug, and brush my teeth if I can find them. (R. Shlomo once said -- "in the morning we wake up and brush our teeth -- I hope we all brush our teeth" -- although there were no toothbrushes on Mt. Sinai, or even in the Siddur, you don't need to be a Reformie to add that corallary -- ) Then knock off a quick Shaharit and catch the bus to the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company , I should only deliver good news and throw the rest down the storm drain, we should only have a it of rain in 6 months. And Henry Miller said: "I am now surprised neither at the heights to which men can rise, nor the depths to which they sometimes fall." A Roman said, "Humani sum, et in mihi nihil humanorum alienum puta", and that's cute and sweet but the Romans were the first western civilization composed predominantly of pervs. But I digress. } (aa6-13) { Au contraire, I think the intended point is better phrased: you have to yearn in a finite way for the infinite. No. I mean you can yearn in a finite way if you're a control freak on a weekend meditation camp with a merger on the fire -- but also you can yearn in an infinite way. So then what are you yearning for. A nice quiche would go down well at the moment, some cream and just a bit of zucchini, nicely sliced; I've been eating whole wheat pasta with butter and garlic for a year now. And a well- washed glace of sparking white to wash it down nicely; whoever made a movie to put down Merlot must have been Swiss. If you yearn for the infinite, look out, heaven might dump it on you like last night's chamber pot, and before you clean out your eyes you'll find yourself in a hospital bed eating zombie pills for kiddish. So that comes back to RSC's remark "you have to yearn in an infinite way for the finite." So I must withdraw this objection, and you can disregard this footnote. Or could have, rather. But I digress. } (aa6-14) {I might add , that if Deity is Infinite, a masculine pronoun is inappropriate. } (aa6-15) { Well, that pretty much describes what I was going through on the beach on Rodos. i could see everything and do nothing. They warned me before I left Campra, but I didn't pay hardly any attention -- they said, no better have a good place to mediatate handy, and I said, no sweat chevre, I can just go up to the Rodos mountains where the monastaries are. Like, there I am in Campra running around like a BMOC , free room and board courtesy of the Cosmic Hierachy and Mr. Roehrs, and I don't even have the courtesy to stop my hussling for fifteen minutes, and sit down under a real tree and say , excuse me, were you perhaps talking to me, and if so please "indicate precisely what you mean to say" (Beattles, 'When I'm 64' But I digress. ] (aa6-16) [GLOSSARY: svach -- Don't know. Best guess -- A thin wafer of wholegrain used to wrap cubist tortillas. ] (aa6-17) I once got the hit, at the Abode I think, that R. Shlomo wore Yiddishkeit like a beautiful tallis. (aa6-18) PVK often refers to references by St. John of the Cross to "the dark night of the soul", and then, by extention, to "the dark night of the mind". (I am not clear whether the latter concept was coined by St. John of the Cross or by PVK. ) These are stages in the "Pilgrim's Progress" along the spiritual route - - which some might associate with the Cathholic notion of the "Stations of the Cross", and ohters, with the Zen 10 Oxherding Pictures. (aa6-19) {Well, let's see what we got us here. PVK points out, as others have, that, sad to say, in this world money tends to pretty important for accomplishing what one wants to. So ok, everyone knows, power is often bad but also it can be good. And everyone knows, except maybe the Christians, that we should not refuse to use power just because some folk have it and abuse it. I mean, voluntary poverty is cute ans sweet, and they make some good wine in the monastaries even if they ain't great conversationalists. But also voluntary affluence aint' that bad. Jiri Langer, I think it was, tells of one hasidic Rebbe who made a point of being rich. And the Krishna Consciousness crew say, Kirshna says, Do what you will but dedicate the fruits of it to ME. And like, we ain't talking about some blue kid in a chariot here. To use a bit of PVK's terminology: Money can be an ego-trip, but insofar as we exercise the power that money gives us as an expression of Divine Power, it's OK. (Well, that ain't quite how PVK would phrase it. And that say that R. Shlomo usually stayed at the best hotels. Though the Ramada Renaissance ain't the Hilton or the King David. It had a swimming pool. Dafna used to go there when R. Shlomo was there, as his guest, with maybe 50 or so other guests, and swim laps in the swimming pool. Dafna said, Shlomo takes very good care of his chevre. I mean, Dafna had a heart of gold, and she got herself knocked up just so her father's name would not die out, and Modi'in, for all its sniut, did not object to her screwing in the woods until it hit, -- but a socially mobile rabbi would not necessarily have invited her to swim at his hotel as a Trophy Date. If Dafna was waiting at the station for the 3rd Avenue El, the train would see her and turn back. Most people go to a hotel to get a night's sleep. R. Shlomo had so many people coming to see him there, that once, at least once, as he tells the story in someting I input, he had to put a sign on his door, Most merciful of the most merciful, please let me get 4 hours sleep. } (aa16-20) { And this rabbi was so holy he took payment from his congregation -- they have ocngrgations in the USA, insttead of minyans -- only in potatoes. So when R. Shlomo came down to Florida to give a seminar, he paid him in onions, and so they were both very holy and made a stew for shabat because somebody brought carrots for the Reformies to put in their ears. } (aa6-21) { Actually, yes: Viz. the physical realm and the spritual realm are reciprocal, each the other's negation. See, Heidegger ain't that big a deal, we said it first. So maybe he stole it from us, that fat old get.} (aa6-22) {You know this a laying a darned heavy dollop of metaphsics on the obvious, which is that we should do our best to sanctify everyday life. And that is the after-bracha of the Shma -- to keep the Unity in mind under all circumstances -- and also that is "six days you shall work and get it all done, and on the 7th day you shall rest" -- and everyone knows that nobody gets all their work done in 6 days, but that anyhow you rest on Shabat.} (aa6-23) {I always say, every married couple should have three bedrooms -- his, hers, and theirs. My mother once said, marriage is not ideal, it's just better than any of the alternatives. I mrsn, even if sex is more fun with someone else, that doesn't entail taht everything is. Like doing one's duties in the bathroom before going to work. Or watching movies. } (aa6-24) And PVK said, several times: There aren't enough good jobs to go around. And HIK said, the bassoon player can't skip his cue because he really isn't into it just then. And the flute leaves out the obligato because he just doesn't feel worthy of such an honor. (That's my riff). But too, the Sufis make much of the notion that everyone has a maquam, a place, and so you're supposed to find your palce and sit in it, and tha by the Sufis is how tikun haOlam happens. So like, if you're playing the oboe part as well as anyone reaonable could expect, but if you're in fact the trombone player and didn't quite realize it -- then it don't help much that you did the oboe part fair to middlin' -- especially since the oboe made a mess of the wah-wah's. } {aa6-24a} Daven, rather. Prayer is infinite. Davening is often finite. Prayer is what you do when a bear drools on your necktie. Davening is what you do when your were trying to sneak out to the pool hall and somebody hollered 'Minyan!'. (aa6-25) { And elsewhere, I think mayb I heard this at Another Place Farm ca. 1974, and input it -- so somewhere R. Shlomo says, on Shabat the body naps and takes the soul with it -- meaning, on Shabat the body is not working at cross-purposes with the soul, au contraire, on Shabat the body is raising the soul to higher levels then it could get to letting itself be schlepped back and forth to the office all week. And somewhere HIK says, the soul has little sense of self, it picks up a self-image from whereer you take it to. But that ain't all bad, if I take it to the Bet Knesset on Shabat, it remembers its true nature as Shabosdik. } (aa6-26) { It don't have to be challah; any bread will do, as long as they didn't grease the pans with pigfat, like I used to do. (aa6-27) Oh mazaltov, join a Buddhist monastary and make kiddish over two pieces of vollkorn flatbrot with a dash of salt, and a glass of water with one mint teabag. (aa6-27a) It's more than that. Otherwise I could make motzi on a psyilicybin mushroom. Shabat I have to eat two meals even if I'd rather bliss out on airplane glue. Because Shabat is sanctifying the week. And in the week we have to eat because we have to work. I mean, you can't shovel snow on airplane glue. And that'w why I started eating meat in Switzerland this year, and that's why the Indians pass around a bit of venison in the morning, even to the veggies -- or rahter, I guess that's why. But that's another story. (aa6-28) The English gets rather confusing here. I think what RSC means is not precisely 'bliss' but 'oneg Shabat'. 'Bliss' is a common trnslation of some rather specific terms in eastern mysticisms, but I forget which terms them is. (aa6-28a) Look, you can't do metaphysics without a licesnse, it gets embarassing for the onlookers. Any conundrum can be explicated by an exegesis. So ok, the least work the better. That's Okham's Razor: "Do not multiply entities beyond need," or as they say in the USA, "If it ain't broke don't fix it." So ok, try this: All acts are finite, but acts done as a means are finite_finite, and acts done as an end_in_itself are infinite_finite. The later are Shabosdik. Eg making kidish. An act doee as a means to a mitzva is infinite_finite_infinite, 'ifi' for short, Mort. So if I'm making money to buy challot, that's holy, but to buy a BMW 4-wheel-drive StratoCruiser Off-Road Gas-Guzller BushieMobile II, this is not so holy. (aa6-28b) And pick up a Ph.d on your way back from the Dry Cleaners' please. (AA6-29g) [GLOSSARY BEST GUESSED: Burro Park -- A Frumie Reservation in the Amerian Soutwest from which motor vehicles are excluded. ] (aa6-30) Like, if I want metaphysics I an go back to Columbia College. From Judaism I ant halachot. I mean, you ever try to tighten a set of lug-nuts with metaphysics. "Chicken on the car and the car won't go; that's the way you spell Chi-ca-go." (Delmore Schwartz, quoted in a biogrpahy.) (aa6-31) Oh, how ineffably cute; give the man a bananna. PVK would say, only inasmuch as it temporarily forsears its finitude. (My verbiage, Burbabe) (aa6-32) [ And that happens to be quite an important point, so let's underline it. This is: Do not study kabala until you have "a belly full of halacha" and have been married so long that your wife starts looking at the milkman. It has very much to do with what Leary called 'ego-loss'. And this is why Leary once said, Only swingers can handle LSD. Because unless you swing wide with the winds of mysticism, and keep your ass on the seat while you do, you'll fall off and then thy'll have to call your Mommy, which gets a bit embarassing after a few decades. ] (aa6-33) { This is the wind_up frummies, and it is also what Jesus, whoever he was and/or wasn't, callled 'vain repetitions'. Of course it is also the Saturday morning Reform with its plastic organ, and the British Cultural Society Conservatives with their Bet Knesset pointed toward Gibraltar because that was what the architect thought best. (aa6-33a) Seems to me most of the Amidah is darned near obsolte. So I think the Reformies are on the right track for changing it. Right track might go to the wrong place of course. I'm not even talking of the Curse of Sammy the Runt -- the 19th supposed bracha of Shmuel haKatan -- like I say, looks like the rabbi's are trying te tell us something when they continue to call it the Shemoneh Esre -- and Shmuel haKatan gets a pretty bad write_up in the Talmud -- starting with name they laid on him -- we see him showing up where he wasn't invited and being politely told, this ain't your place, buddy. And we seem him quoted only for one really vindicitive little statement. Like I say, Jews don't do witchcraft. Wizards get stoned, witches are stoned. So a curse has no place in brachot, and no place in a prayer book. Me, I don't say it, I don't answer Amen to it (when I rewmember not to -- tho I respond b'ruch hu -- and I don't even think it -- instead I try to just think Kether -- that was what R. Zalman said to me when I asked him about it -- or rather, that's all I remember of what he said to me -- and by me, Kether is just a blast of white light on whoever it is that needs to be blasted - - I don't even think of who -- well, I didd once and he drove away after a big rainstorm -- and if they get sizzled to a crisp in the white light, ain't no great loss to the world -- theytheir own fault anyhow, they should hae worn a white asbestos raincoat -- once I'm asking directions to the Boston Sufi Center in Fraying Gentitlity Jamaica Plain, one of Saphira Linden's inspirations I reckon, from the elevated subway line, which lets you off in a pretty tough section, and someone who answers the phone says, oh, just surround yourself with white light, and I think, mazaltov, that and a few Isreaelis with carryons and no problem, Goblin -- So anyhow, I wing it from memory on the Amidah when I daven, if you can call it that, alone -- but I have to do a heck of a lot of updating -- gather our exiles becomes do the right thing by the Ethiopians, give us rain becomes stop the turkeys from tashing the ecosystem, restore King David becomes give Sharon and the Knesset a hit or two of common sense, the prayer for peace becomes let all the chayalim and chayalot and shomerim and secret services too stay alert, even on Shabat, that they should not hae any work accidents -- And like I say, I just can't hack that Monday / Thursday extended Tachunan, it's too obsolete -- But I can't go along with Modi'in finessing out the afternoon tachanun either -- they start mincha 2 seconds before shkiya so they're on the wrong side of the sunset when its time for tachanun and all the horny cohenim have already gone back in to eat lambchops -- I mean, I can almost see the young women dressed in flowing whie linen, with some beautiful sashes and long dark hair so cleanses with herbs, standing out on the rooftops of Jerusalem in the first cool of the evening, watching them walk back in and thinking gee, under appropriate circumstances I wouldn't mind ameliorating the situation for this one or that -- Lechery is the last consolation of an involuntary elder in the regret of neglected marital obligations But I digress. } (aa6-34) But that just means Reformies are stupid, it don't mean that we can't make improvements on the siddur. Like, everyone used to. I mean, like R. Zalman suggests, it's about time to write Talmud_Two. And everyone knows, there's a whole lot of stuff in the Siddur that's gotten obsolete or wasn't well-written in the first place, and should be cut out, only nobody has ever dared do it, so they just leave it in and skip over it quick as they can. And the Machzor is a whole lot worse. Gvalt, Boring. I mean nowadays, on Yom Kippur, one should simply pop into the Bet Knesset, say Sorry about all that, and go on the Encounter Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, I'll drink to that. (aa6-35) he can momish see the way the nose ix connected to the foot, right. { That applies of course only to the left nose. -- sa} (aa6-36) You can see from this that R. Shlomo had a great respect for wholistic medicine. Somone told me, when they told him, you have to haew a coronary bypass -- or some such, I don't recall what -- he said, then let's do it, and he went into the hospital and had an operation and came out and went back to work. (aa6-37) I must say, I find all this talk of 'heart' a bit awkward. It was common enough parlance through the 19th century I suppose, but nowadays one thinks instead of stints and stents with "systatole disatole spokes of a wheel" (Hart Crane),and multiple bypasses and all that gunk. 'Heart' is what HIK calls 'my feeling heart', the whole emotion_driven intelligence of a being. 'Mind', which nowadays we -- me anyhow, but that's because I have a M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Cow College and Sheepdip in Albuqureque, -- think of as the essence of of mankind -- as for womankind, who knows that they tthink with -- so mind is considered by msstics , eg HIK, PVK, RSC , to be merely a sort of analytic faculty -- a bit like the adding machine that I have on my shelf, useful as long as it stays in its place -- I mean gvalt, so her's this science fiction story called The REvolot of the Adding Mchines -- a dictatorship of the balance sheet -- The pre-Socratics, as I recall, spoke of a 'blood-soul' and a 'mind-soul' --