mentalblog.com comments:
Hey, TA,
How's it going. I haven't been to the blog in a while. I missed you.
Did you ever see Michael Mann's Heat? If you did, I think it would be a good springboard for tying up some issues that are floating around right now on the blog.
Things are not floating. Say something for the soul, Tony, we run aground.
You saw the movie?
I just looked. I think I saw bits of it on TV, not a complete movie. Deep Cover themes?
Yeah, Deep Cover themes. But it gets more into the cop-criminal as alter egos of each other. It explains, to my thinking, the innevitable dehumanization of would-be moral leaders.
Why inevitable? I have to see it.
Michael Mann's Manhunter also explores this theme (not that Silence of the Lambs sequel crap which should be flushed down the toilet.) Manhunter is also about how the one representing morality becomes inhuman, but there, the bad guy is already inhuman. In Heat, the "good" guy and the "bad" guy are both struggling to hang on to their humanity.
You often use the word "humanity". What does it mean for you?
It's inevitable because to catch the bad guys you have to enter their world. To survive there, you either have to be lechatchilah an insensitive jerk, or, farkert, hyper-sensitive. But then, you can't have a real life of your own. I believe this is why most cheder rebbes who can stay in the business for the long haul are shallow people.
First let's explore the antithesis. Being inhuman is generally accepted to mean lacking compassion. Cruelty is considered inhuman. Thus, humanity means the ability to feel things deeply and to empathize with others. But it also means to be rational, to be a dreamer, and to seek out communication.
How does hyper-sensitive survive? You said that the machine will not accept human categorically.
Humanity is the ability to feel passionately about things you cannot see.
You definition of human is antithetical to the religious man I know.
The hyper-sensitive cannot survive. A chosid once told the Tzemach Tzedek "I'm afraid [because of the responsibility) to be a melamed." The Rebbe answered, "Davka someone like you should be a melamed." It is only the hyper-sensitive person who can fight for humanity, but in the end, the battlezone strips him of his humanity. He is a korban.
My definition of human is antithetical to the religous man that you know, or to the very concept in general?
Go see Heat. Pacino and DeNiro... you can't go wrong.
the hyper-sensitive can't change his essence , he can't become inhuman. He can only die.
Yeah, you're right. It's like how the Eibershter took Chanoch from the world alive, before he could die morally. When the sensitive man is insurmountably threatened with becoming inhuman, he finally just dies.
What is between living in an inhuman world and death? Nothing?
In the world of movies and novels a character such as Ellsworth Toohey would observe: "When the sensitive man is insurmountably threatened with becoming inhuman, he finally just dies."
Bullshit and absolutely inhuman of you to state so, particularly at this time in this place.
b'al korchecha atta chai; to struggle with contradictions (koleil huffchim) is the truest expression of one's humanity, of one's Jewishness - to be a Yisroel means to struggle with man and G-d and all the pain and fear and confusion it entails.
Truman: First of all, I am a fan of your colorful style. Now, a few points:
We're talking about movies, for crying out loud. TA and I have an ongoing discussion of how this particular struggle is depicted through the collective consciousness of art and pop culture. Of course you are right that in "real life" the struggle must go on. No duh, Sherlock. That's not up for discussion. So, your drosho is nice but unnecessary.
You say: "particularly at this time in this place." Why? Are you afraid that someone else reading this blog besides you (maybe the blogmaster himself) will also not understand the difference between speaking in archetypes and giving practical advice and, upon reading my post, decide that life is no longer worth living, r"l?
Chill out, Truman.
BTW - I really do like your writing, but you remind me more of Sherman T. Potter (another Missourian) than Harry S Truman. It makes sense. Colonel Potter's lines were also written by Jews.
Isn't there a KORES where a person is cut off from the spiritual source? Might be worse than the real death. Who wnats to be a goy? You call that life?
The Rebbe was not a fraud.
Yisroel dont even bother
but one does and must make a machaoh and what tzemach did say
let's reassess _life_ a second.. a rasha is dead in his lifetime..
how can the super-sensitive survive? through prayer. That's the only way that I make it through the day now. and I have b"h a good life. Look at david hamelech, moshe rabeinu, and all of the rebbes
imho tefillah is the only way to survive if you are at all sensitive.. because it's all only painful and only bad when you forget who and what it all really is.
If you want pop culture I'll point to the matrix line (though it's really cliched to quote the matrix) "you think that's air you're breathing?..in this place?"
Tefillah brings us back to the real emet, that it's all just God projected on our senses. And imho the suffering of this world is the forge. the purification that lets those layers of projection and senses be pealed away. You can't escape it. You can embrace it and ease it along, or you can fight it and feel it burn all the more..
i'm searching for an analog in popculture but all the culture i know doesn't really get this point. For example, anyone who's never poured all of their sorrow or suffering into a poem or song or painting, would mistakenly think David Hamelech lived his whole life depressed. When in actuality, I believe he was one of the most sane individuals because he brought everything out, and turned it into the fuel for his tefillot, for his relationship with haShem.
All experiences can be channeled into productive outlets or not. But there's nothing qualitatively wrong with the experiences themselves. Having said that, I still don't want to suffer. Knowing the path is different from walking the path. (sadly another matrix quote --- i'm way out of pop culture for like seven years now.. i only bother to peak in @ scifi since it's always had the most original ideas imho.)
I know for myself, the strongest moments in my life were those in which I turned to HaShem in the face of suffering and felt closer because of it.
not trying to self promote (no point, no one reads my blog anyways) when i say my latest blog post i think is a good response to angst at the state of affairs in any setting that's bigger than just you.
Beautifully put, Yitz. There was a crappy studio movie called The Game with Michael Douglas (not Jewish) and Sean Penn. This is a pop culture example of the "last sane man on earth" finding out that he is really not the only sane person and that everything is really under control. Only a big budget studio film could have such a redemptive ending.
A while back, I mentioned Kafka's The Trial as the archetypical template for the last sane man on earth story. Imagine if The Trial ended with everybody saying, "Surprise! It was all just a game, perfectly and compassionately engineered to make you become the man you need to be!"
I just realized that the only popular narrative template in which there is redemption, comfort and affirmation of humanity in the end is the "buddy movie comedy". See Midnight Run or Night Shift. By way of contrast, there is also the "anti-buddy movie" (see Reservoir Dogs) in which the breakdown or loss of inter-human bonding means the loss of opportunity for redemption.
Yes, redemption comes about through the refinement of one man by another.
The supersensitive last man on earth has no 'buddies'.
TM
Archetypes, analogues, all drawn from poplular culture, the risk of ignoring the subtext of concepts and values foreign to the Jewish mind, runs the risk of blurring the lines between convenient dialectical devices and reality.
Truman here, chillin' to the tune of:
Suicide is painless...
King David had a sense that his 'buddy' above was listening. I don’t have that sense.
I also think that some of the readers vicariously enjoy my demise.
They enjoy your demise because of your constant putdowns of everything dear to them.
For no other reason.
Nobody harbors any ill will towards you.
Gomeler,
Pray tell, how does "enjoying someone's demise" go together with "not harboring any ill toward them"? Is there a greater "ill" than "demise"?
Ve'eid: please don't get a nice town all mixed up with ill wishes toward other Jews.
Does this sound familiar?
The antitheocracy of Iran
By MEHDI KHALAJI
WASHINGTON -- Iran's theocratic regime appears more confident than ever. Its standoff with the West over its nuclear program, together with its ties to Syria and its growing influence in Lebanon and Iraq, suggest the emergence of a strong regional power. But while Western analysts and Iran's neighbors raise the alarm, the regime's authority is in fact built on insecure foundations.
The 1979 revolution, which ended Iran's monarchical tradition, created a new political order based on Shiite theological foundations and gave absolute ruling power to a Shiite jurist/cleric. Throughout Iran's long history, Shiite seminaries exercised great influence on Iranian society and politics, but they had been considered civil institutions. It was not until the Iranian revolution that the seminary establishment came to be considered a source of political legitimacy.
The change followed Ayatollah Khomeini's theory of the "jurist-ruler." In Khomeini's view, the jurist-ruler could modify religious laws, depending on his interpretation of the needs of the regime. As a result, religious interpretation -- previously, a highly decentralized function undertaken by various seminaries -- was concentrated in the hands of a political leader.
Accordingly, the seminary establishment was no longer a civil structure managing only religious affairs, but instead developed into a unified, ideological party serving the interests of the regime.
That transformation was far-reaching. Traditionally, Shiite seminaries were rather unorganized, unstructured places, based on premodern styles of management. The concept of a decentralized religious establishment is difficult for Westerners to understand, given the highly structured administrative framework of Christian churches and ecclesiastical orders. But this fluid hierarchy, an absence of written rules and organizational order, allowed the various seminaries -- and their different interpretive traditions -- to survive despotic political regimes and resist intervention by different dynasties and monarchies.
This change in Shiite orientation also reflects a very modern influence on politics. Since Shiite fundamentalism is itself a recent phenomenon, the early Iranian revolutionaries inevitably rebuilt the religious seminaries along lines suggested by the Iranian opposition's most powerful prerevolutionary discourse: communist ideology.
By "modernizing" the seminaries following a single-party model, the revolutionaries gained control over them. The seminaries became little more than an extension of the political system.
The death of Khomeini -- and that of other religious authorities (marjas) like Ayatollah Abul Qassem Khoi in Najaf, Iraq -- marked the end of the ideal of a ruler who had mastered both religion and politics.
Iran's current supreme ruler, Seyyed Ali Khamenei, whose religious degree was a focus of suspicion in the seminary and among the clerical elite, was not considered a jurist by merit. Consequently, Khamenei's evident lack of religious legitimacy has pushed the government to assume full control over the clerical establishment, further depriving the seminaries of their historical independence.
The last decades have provided the regime with near-ideal conditions to seize control over the Shiite clerical establishment in Iraq as well. Under Saddam Hussein, restrictions were imposed on the Shiite seminary in Najaf -- traditionally a counterbalance to Iran's Shiite establishment -- forcing the emigration of a number of clerics to the Iranian seminary in Qom.
Indeed, growing Iranian control of the Shiite clerical establishment extended beyond Iraq. It was also strengthened by the regime's activities in the 1980s, when it created Hezbollah as a guerrilla organization in Lebanon, thereby expanding its domination over the most important Shiite areas in the region. The Iranian regime then consolidated its mastery of the Shiite network in the Middle East, and now uses this control to further its own interests.
There is thus little prospect of an alternative Shiite power center emerging out of the chaos in Iraq. Khamenei, the supreme leader, has succeeded in politicizing the Shiite clerical establishment, primarily by controlling the financial resources of the religious authorities and Shiite institutions in Iran and the region.
Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has not been able to act independently and has avoided opposing Iranian policies toward Iraq in order to protect his fragile network of institutions. As a result, despite Saddam's fall, the Najaf seminary remains impotent.
Ironically, it seems that theocratic theory in Iran has led to antitheocracy. With the seminaries politicized and their independence greatly reduced, the religious establishment is no longer in a position to confer political legitimacy on the regime. Nor can it exercise its traditional functions in the religious sphere to provide support to civil society in the country.
At a time when the Islamic Republic has failed in its economic and political promises to the Iranian people, the regime's most glaring weakness may prove to be the absence of a credible religious authority that can justify its shortcomings.
Mehdi Khalaji, a Shiite theologian trained in Qom and at the Sorbonne, is the author of "The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism," and is currently a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Copyright 2006 Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org)
To Truman:
M'ken fun altz lernen.
Berl
the demise is wished upon the blogger known as Tzemach Atlas, not the young man behind that persona.
Gomel had its share of rifraff, so let's not get all misty-eyed about Gomel.
I guess Gomeler wants TA to faruq...
faruq that.
Berl, that was a funny comment.
TA that was a very moving clip you put up.
Faruq has a very valid point, and unfortunately ever since Gimmel Tammuz the worse has come out from Chabadtzkers. Until people like yourself don't keep on hammering this point, that hapach nishbar, it's not possible va-anachnu nimlotnu.
One can not stay quiet in these horrible times, witness the incredible unacceptable behavior which hides under the cloak of Chassidism and stay quiet. Together with some very serious points that I strongly disagree with TA he has many very sad and true issues we need addressing and which need Tikkun Olam. A Jew A Chossid a civilized person must open his mouth wide and protest the disastrous situation going from bad to worse in Chabad.
There is no forum for these discussions. People are afraid to speak out and many still don't realize how terrible it is.
Timing, you fools! The persona known as TA dies every Tammuz only to rise from his ashes sometime after Tu b'Av.
I'd like to think its an upward spiral.
Tony Montana,
At this rate, TA עלול להמריא
:)
I just want to make a micha, Im pretty new to this blog, but tzemach did you just say the rebbe is a fraud g-d forbid, Listen its a very dangerous thing to say. for your good go to the ohel ad beg michila.
I'm very curious of what type of relationship TA had with rebbe. I had none and therefore am just an innocent reader.
Did he do something bad to you back in his lifetime that you feel so compelled to call a much revered man, a fraud? Or was it some sort of more recent occurrence that you had with him and all of a sudden decided to join scotty's crusade beacuse the man refused to call some black people in africa jewsih in order to help scotty make an extra few quids from the uja. ( I assume that had he gotten the rabbi's approval, he would have received greater funding from uja etc., otherwise what's the big deal?)
It just fascinates me that you tend to blame others for your own failures. How about taking a deep stare into your mirror in the morning after your shower (unless your like the chabads that go to mikva) and see where the problem really lies at.
I wish you luck and please answer me why you tend to constantly disrespect a man who seems to have had a much greater impact on the world than you and I. In fact, I would not be involved in the jewish blog sphere if it were not for one of the man's ambassadors to my college, where I beacame acquainted with religiosity and it's not as bad as you make it sound to be.
Make a 'micha'
Pesel Micha?
You Lubab have made a nice big Pesel Micha !
(Is it to much to teach your baaley teshuva even basic loshon kodesh?)
Chaim Meir, your attempted dig at Lubavitch is insipid.
Just wondering, what does Chaim Meir mean by 'loshon kodesh' (which translates as ‘language holiness’)?
Could he possibly mean 'leshon hakodesh', or in Lithuanian pronunciation ‘leshein hakeidesh’ (which translates as ‘The Holy Tongue’)?
Could it be that in their circles even the grammarians don’t know basic 'leshein hakeidesh'?
I am about to tread on some very thin ice, but what the heck:
I do not know what TA means by the word 'fraud' when talking about the Rebbe. But I can assure ya’ll (even if TA protests this) that he did not use this word with its conventional meaning in mind (this kind of linguistic incongruity is something TA is often not overly concerned with). So, whatever...
TA, being a ruski, often just lifts expressions and meanings from that tongue (and which often will only be fully nuanced in Russian only) and dresses them up in English as best he can.
TA has been proven to be the biggest fraud of all. He knows exactly what I mean. Shame on TA!
Chani, email me.
Chani, it would be nice if you did not bad mouth other Jews just because they are from Africa. There are Jews waiting in Ethiopia to go to Israel while Israel is importing non-Jewish, often even anti-Semitic people from the former USSR. All this with you UJA money.
KT
Let's be real. There are many problems all around the Jewish world and Lubavitch is not exempt. You could even say that there are unique problems but there are also positive elements. Enough positive elements for this discussion to happen. Perhaps what this site should morph into is not only an exhibition of the dirty laundry, so to speak, but what it should be. a diary of a person who sees the dirt and makes every effort to live and be the real deal...i am blabbing but i think you got the point
oh, come on TA don't you like their positive attitude, looking for the sunshine with a smile on their faces. Now, let's look at the bright side, forget about the creeping corruption, the aura of ignorance, the pompous stupidity. Actually, what do I say, don't forget it, let's inhale its putrid air and be content with it.
There is a poem of Jozsef Attila that comes to mind (it is much better in the original):
I've seen what they call happiness:
soft, blonde, it weighed two hundred kilos;
it waddled smiling on the grass,
its tail a curl between two pillows.
Its lukewarm puddle glowed with yellows,
it blinked and grunted at me--yes,
I still remember where it wallows,
touched by the dawns of blissfulness.
Inside there is a world of pain,
outside is only explanation.
The world's your scab, the outer stain,
your soul's the fever-inflammation.
Jailed by your heart's own insurrection,
you're only free when you refrain,
nor build so fine a habitation,
the landlord takes it back again.
actually, TA, i don't know you in person .. and as a blogger, when you self-destruct it just sort of sounds like cliche'd whiny teenager ..
mixed with some pompous wanna-be intellectual .. mamash no offense. i don't know you.. i'm just commenting from outside your circle of familiarity .. (i have some chabad friends and I study a lot of the first three rebbe's torah .. but i'm completely outside this whole growing up chabad/chabad world crisis thing.)
it mostly just distresses me when you self-destruct because it seems like you intentionally warp your values away from the obvious stuff, just because it's cliche'd and that doesn't work with the intellectual vibe you are going for. my 2 cents (not worth a penny more than that.)
re: tefillah, yagata v'matzata taamin, yagata v'lo matzata al taamin.
it took me ~23 years to realize the reason why tefillot were meaningless was because it was me who had no _real_ interest in connecting to God. HaShem is always there, waiting for us to act. I've never (ever!) asked a serious question with all of my being during tefilla and not gotten an _immediate_ answer. I don't always connect even now.. but often times I'm too lazy.. i don't really *need* anything badly enough.
Tzemach, sorry if dismissed all of your troubles so lightly, it's just that i've been through all of that stuff.. (i barely got through college w/ my sanity) .. and something magically happens when you get older, as long as you keep thinking(and questioning), your mind keeps expanding, and all of these things become clearer (and you find other things with higher priorities too, i'll admit) .. so I'm distressed, literally, for you when you go through this.. but I'm comforted by the fact that you'll be alright basof. :)
Somewhere way back in the beginning of this thread was an exchange about the struggle between living in an inhuman world and death, sensitivity, burnout, etc.
Simone Weil wrote (something like) "Affliction is the lot of the lover of absolutes in this world of relativity."
Absolutism, like torah, chabad style will create affliction in its adherents, unless they squash their id to The Great One.
So one has to always be at least open to flex to the multi-realities of the moment (not be or feign absolutism) = relativity = our world. No hyper-anything. Know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. Even chabad includes this reality - Hiskallilus? or whatever term that refers to the need to have every attribute mixed with the other, not all strength or all compassionate, but rather a nice blend that applies the right stuiff the right time... So hyper sensitive is not ideal human.
Tzemach - See these about the movie:
http://www.haifaff.co.il/product...ng.asp?
p_id=292
http://www.fipresci.org/festival...haifa/
putin.htm
einikel, is there a DVD of this movie? How can I see it?
Festival Haifa was the first festival it participated in so you will have to be patient; but I give you my word that it's worth the patience.
Commenting by HaloScan
