Wednesday, April 18, 2012

ניסיון ביקור בהר הבית מספר 5 • Attempted visit to the Temple Mount #5

Jewish date:  26 Nisan 5772 (Parashath Thazria‘-Meṣora‘).

Today’s holidays:  Day 11 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Wednesday of the Second Week of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Lady Macbeth (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

Note:  The following open letter is presented in both Hebrew and English, so if you cannot read the Hebrew version, please just scroll down.

Peace.

’Aharon/Aaron



הערה: מכתב זה נשלח גם למשרד ראש הממשלה, למשרד לביטחון הפנים, לכמה מפלגות פוליטיות, ולג׳רוזלם פוסט, וגם מפורסם בבלוג שלי, Divine Misconceptions.

זה היה יותר מדי זמן מאז ביקרתי בהר הבית, ולכן החלטתי לבקר בפסח, זמן מסורתי לביקור כזה.  נסעתי לירושלים ביום השלישי של פסח.  הפעם הטלתי מטבע כדי להחליט אם להעמיד פנים כתייר או לא, והתוצאה היתה לצאת בגלוי כיהודי דתי.  השוטר אשר דיבר איתי שאל אותי מה מתכנתי לעשות על הר הבית, ואמרתי לו אשר הלכתי לראות אבנים, עצים, צמחים, ואנשים, וגם המשטרה עושה את העבודה שלהם בכבוד.  היו לו בעיות עם הסיפור הזה, אשר בו אני דבקתי, אף על פי הוא לא חשב אשר המטרה יכולה להיות לא־דתית וגם ציינתי בצדק כי לפי חוק מדינת ישראל מותר ללא־מוסלמים להתפלל ואף להקריב קורבנות על הר הבית.  (והני המטרה שלי היתה כולה דתית, אבל זה באמת לא העניין של המשטרה או הממשלה, במיוחד כאשר הן שואפות בלי צדק לעמוד בדרכי.)  השוטר התייעץ עם בקצין שלו, אשר סירב לתת לי לעלות על הר הבית, כי הוא פחד אשר אעשה ״הפרעת שלום״.  התרגום של זה היא כי המוסלמים הם חבורה של בכיינים לא־סובלניים שעלולים לעשות התקפי זעם כאשר הם נחשפים לדתות אחרות, והמשטרה מעדיפה להיכנע לאיומים שלהם על הר הבית מלאכוף סובלנות דתית.  יתר על כן, הענישו אותי על פשע לכאורה אשר לא ביצעתי ואולי גם לא אתחייב.  במילים פשוטות, זה לא חוקי על פי בית המשפט העליון הפרה של זכויות האזרח.  השוטר אשר דיבר איתי והשוטרים האחרים בביתן הכניסה להר הבית היו אדיבים וסובלניים כאשר ישבתי בחוץ ומסרב לצאת עד שהם סגרו.  (אבל השוטר אשר דיבר איתי זרק כמה נרות אשר נוצרים השאירו בארון חפצי הערך, ורק כאשר הפסיק התנגדתי ושאלתי אותו ״מה עשו לך הנוצרים?״) עם זאת, לא הייתי מסוגל לכפות שום סיבה טובה מהם להכחיש לי כניסה.  ברור שמישהו צריך ללמוד איך לשקר בצורה משכנעת יותר ובסיפוק.  אף אחד לא מכבד שקר רע בשקיפות, במיוחד כאשר הוא אמור לחפות על פחדנות ועצלות.

אני מקווה שכל אחד בממשלה והמפלגות הפוליטיות אשר אליהם אני שולח את הפוסט הזה דווקא קורא אותו ולוקח אותו תחת דיון.  מדינת ישראל אמורה להיות ארץ של חופש, כולל חופש הדת.  ייתכן בהחלט עבור הממשלה לאכוף את חופש הדת.  מיד אחרי אשר גורשתי מחוץ לתא הכניסה להר הבית, הלכתי לרחבת הכותל.  יהודים מן כל סוגי דתיות ורמות דתיות היו התערבבו שם באופן חופשי, ואף אחד לא התלונן.  היתה קבוצה של קסים מבצעת טקס עם שמשיות, פעמונים מהודרות, תופים, ושירה.  האנשים האלה הם מחוץ לזרם המרכזי היהודי הפרושי, ובכל זאת אף אחד לא נפגע במה אשר עשו, אפילו לא חרדים.  בעת הביקור האחרון לכותל המערבי לפני זה, היתה קבוצה של בפטיסטים מן דרום אפריקה מתפללים בחצי־מעגל, ושוב, אף אחד לא התנגד למה אשר עשו, אף על פי שהם לחלוטין מחוץ לתחום היהדות על פי כל ההגדרה אשר אני יודע.  סובלנות הדדית בכותל המערבי היא הנורמה. אבל, למסיבה כלשהי, המשטרה לא מוכנים לעשות את העבודה שלהם לאכוף אותו הסובלנות בהר הבית. במוקדם או במאוחר, תהיו בבחירות, ואני אקשיב למה המפלגות השונות אומרות על אכיפת חופש דת לכולם—ומה הם כבר עשו בנוגע לנושא זה.  אני אשקול את זה כאשר אבחר לאיזו מפלגה להצביע, ואני אעודד אחרים לעשות כן גם הם. כמעט כל מדינה על פני כדור הארץ והאו"ם לפחות טוענה לתמוך בחופש הדת. זהו מעשה שלא ייעשה, כי זה יהיה מס שפתיים בלבד.





Note:  This letter is also being sent to the Prime Minister’s office, the Ministry of Public Security, several political parties, and the Jerusalem Post, as well as being posted on my blog, Divine Misconceptions.

It had been too long since I visited the Temple Mount, and so I decided to visit during Pesaḥ, a traditional time for such a visit, and I traveled to Yerushalayim on the third day of Pesaḥ.  This time I flipped a coin to decide whether to pretend to be a tourist or not, and the result was to go openly as an observant Jew.  The police officer there asked me what I was planning to do up on the Temple Mount, and I told him that I was going to see rocks, trees, plants, and people, not to mention the police doing their job with honor.  He had trouble with this story—which I stuck to, despite him not thinking that the purpose could be anything but religious and me noting correctly that it is actually legal for non-Muslims to pray and even bring sacrifices on the Temple Mount.  (Actually my purpose was completely religious, but that is frankly not the business of the police or the government, especially when they aim to unjustly stand in my way.)  The officer consulted his commanding officer, who refused to let me go up on the Temple Mount, because he was afraid I would commit a “disturbance of the peace”.  The translation of this is that the Muslims are a bunch of intolerant crybabies who are liable to throw temper tantrums when exposed to other religions, and the police would rather capitulate to their threats on the Temple Mount rather than enforce religious tolerance.    Furthermore, this is punishing me for an alleged crime which I have not committed and may well not commit.  To put it bluntly, this is illegal according to the Supreme Court and a violation of civil rights.  The officer with whom I spoke and the other officers at the Temple Mount entrance booth were polite and fairly tolerant of me parking myself right outside and refusing to leave until they closed (though the officer with whom I spoke threw away some Christian candles in the valuables cabinet and only stopped when I objected and asked him “What did the Christians do to you?”), but I was unable to coerce any valid reason out of them for denying me entry.  Clearly someone needs to learn how to lie more convincingly and satisfyingly.  No one respects a transparently bad lie, especially when it is meant to cover up cowardice and laziness.

I hope that everyone in government to whom I send this post actually reads it and takes it under consideration.  The State of Israel is supposed to be a land of freedom, including freedom of religion.  It is entirely possible for the government to enforce freedom of religion.  Right after I was evicted from right outside the Temple Mount entrance booth, I went to the Western Wall Plaza.  Jews of all levels and sorts of religiosity were mixing freely—and no one seemed to mind.  There was a group of qesim (traditional Ethiopian Jewish clerics) performing a ceremony with fancy parasols, bells, drums, and chanting.  These people are outside the Pharisaic Jewish mainstream, and yet no one showed any offense at what they were doing, not even Ḥaredhim.  At the time of last visit to the Western Wall before this one, there was a group of Baptists from South Africa praying in a semicircle, and again, no one objected to what they were doing, even though they are completely outside the bounds of Judaism according to every definition of what I am aware.  Mutual tolerance at the Western Wall is the norm.  But, for some reason, the police are unwilling to do their job and enforce the same tolerance on the Temple Mount.  Sooner or later, there is going to be an election, and I will be listening to what the various parties have to say on the enforcement of freedom of religion for everyone—and what they have already done concerning this issue.  I will be taking this into account when choosing which party to vote for, and I will be encouraging others to do so, too.  Almost every country on Earth and the United Nations at least claim to subscribe to freedom of religion.  It is unconscionable that this should be merely lip service.

Further reading:

Description of my first trip to the Temple Mount:  http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/2011/05/temple-mount-infiltration-and-vandalism.html

Description of my second trip to the Temple Mount:  http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/2011/08/visit-to-temple-mount-2-waqf-still.html

Description of a failed trip to the Temple Mount:  http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/2011/11/yishaq-rabbin-memorial-day-and-would-be.html

Description of a second failed trip to the Temple Mount, resulting in me starting to write to people in government:  http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/2011/12/open-letter-of-complaint-to-israeli.html

Thursday, April 12, 2012

GCB is not as bad as I feared it would be

Jewish date:  20 Nisan 5772 (Parashath Shemini).

Today’s holidays:  Ḥol hamMo‘edh Pesaḥ (Judaism), Day 5 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Thursday in the Octave of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Print Olive (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of Mary d’Este Sturges (Thelema).

Greetings.

And now for another attempt at getting caught up blogging.  Today’s topic is the TV series GCB, which I have been watching on Hulu ever since Barry made me aware of the show’s religious nature.

The pilot episode struck me as something largely stereotyped and poorly thought out.  The main protagonist of the series is Amanda Vaughn, a woman whose husband Billy runs a scam, tries to flee with the money, and dies in a car crash with his mistress due to them doing something blatantly stupid and disgusting while driving.  Even though Amanda is not involved in the scam, the government seizes most of her and Billy’s property.  Nearly penniless, Amanda and her children, Laura and Will, return to a high-socioeconomic status section of Dallas to live with her (Amanda’s) mother Gigi.  This has two big downsides:

1) Gigi is crazy and acts in ways which drove Amanda to leave Dallas in the first place.  E.g., she dresses up Laura provocatively (and your humble blogger is strongly tempted to use much more derogatory language than that), teaches Will to mix (alcoholic) drinks, and fakes Amanda having a secret admirer in order to be able to give her expensive presents.

2) Amanda was a “meal girl” back in high school, and many of those people she was mean to still live in Dallas.  The list of regulars whom she offended is long enough to require a scorecard to keep track of:


  • Carlene Cockburn:  Chief antagonist, formerly called “Kitten”, formerly very plain, now a plastic surgery addict and very vindictive.
  • Sharon Peacham:  Ex-beauty queen, now food-obsessed housewife with self-esteem issues.  (The people making this show are trying to make it seem she is overweight, but one would never know it without the dialog.)
  • Heather Cruz:  Realtor.
  • Cricket Caruth-Reilly:  Business woman.  Formerly Bill’s girlfriend until Amanda stole him from her.
  • Ripp Cockburn:  Carlene’s husband.
  • Zack Peacham:  Sharon’s husband, car salesman.
  • Blake Reilly:  Cricket’s husband and business partner, rancher.

These characters are all serious, church-attending Christians, but Amanda is on the receiving end of a lot of rather unpleasant payback.  Carlene, despite frequently citing the Christian Bible (giving book, chapter, and verse), is particularly vindictive and rationalizes immoral behavior (such as “borrowing” a gift card from Amanda in order to be able to determine who her secret admirer is), intimidating Sharon into helping her.  Heather lies to Amanda to keep her from getting a good home and away from Gigi’s bad influence.  Cricket makes backhanded deals to keep Amanda from getting a good job.  And if all this mean-spirited stereotyping of observant Christians was not bad enough, Zack tries putting his moves on Amanda, and it is strongly implied that Blake is homosexual and is having an affair with his head rancher.

To make things worse, despite deeply regretting what she did in high school, Amanda is something of a hypocrite herself.  Despite Cricket’s efforts, Amanda does land a job—at a Hooters clone called Boobylicious.  And considering that Amanda is downright shocked when Gigi dresses up Laura indecently, the cognitive dissonance should be so huge that even fairly unintelligent people should be able to notice it.  (Those who wonder what is wrong with using sexuality to sell food may wish to reread the Coyote Ugly Sermon.)  The dress which Amanda wears to the Longhorn Ball is also immodest and tasteless.  Clearly Amanda is not being a good role model for her children, especially her daughter.  Admittedly dressing immodestly is not as bad as stealing (according to most of us, so far as your humble blogger can tell), but being less bad is not the same thing as being good.

Add to this that it is revealed that Carlene and Ripp are the real owners of Boobylicious and that the name for the show was originally planned to be Good Christian Bitches, and the initial impression is that the writers are a bunch of mean-spirited hacks who hate Christians and think that compared to them even someone who regularly does something sleazy is better.  And that impression would be wrong.

The writers do carry over everything from the pilot into the succeeding episodes, but the characters are not simple, unchanging cardboard cutouts.  Heather reconciles with Amanda very quickly, and her other “enemies” slowly develop better relations with her, even though so far in the series there has been plenty of friction.  While Carlene is the slowest to improve, she can be moved by argument—preferably citing appropriate scriptural sources—and she does have a conscience and care about other people.  (Her reactions may not always be the most sensible, but she does try.)  Sharon, while the most passive of the main characters, has been on a self-improvement kick since doing some volunteer work at the church and is taking more initiative.

The lack of cardboardness is particularly prominent in romantic relationships.  “Bad guys” in GCB can and do have loving, committed relationships.  To be sure, they have problems, but they work to overcome their problems.  The aforementioned business of Zack hitting on Amanda turns out to be due to some inner turmoil stirred up by her arrival; he repents his mistake and constantly works with Sharon to improve their relationship.  Carlene and Ripp also have some rocky moments, but they remain committed to each other.  Notable is the relationship between Cricket and Blake.  Blake is indeed homosexual, while Cricket is heterosexual.  While they satisfy their sexual urges with other people and do not hide the fact from each other, they are emotionally very intimate.

Also breaking cliché:  So far in the series, Amanda has not been sexually active, despite being the central character, and the only man she has ever been with is her husband Bill.  Carlene has been a little worse, only having gone all the way with Ripp, but having done some things in high school which she is not proud of.  (No details are available; the writers seem to want the viewers to use their imaginations.)  Neither currently violates Christian sexual mores, despite how they dress.

GCB is not what your humble blogger would consider an ideal series, and the content is not for everyone.  But it certainly is not as bad as first impressions suggest it is.

Peace and happy Pesaḥ.

’Aharon/Aaron

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Maṣṣah and Paul’s continuing scholarly incompetence

Jewish date:  19 Nisan 5772 (Parashath Shemini).

Today’s holidays:  Ḥol hamMo‘edh Pesaḥ (Judaism), Day 4 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Wednesday in the Octave of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Annual $30 Donation (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

It has been far too long since I last posted.  A lot of this is due to preparation for Pesaḥ (Passover), though I have had other things keeping me busy, and I hope this post will be a step in the direction of getting caught up.  Towards that, I present two topics today:

1) Relevant to Pesaḥ, some articles on the symbolism of maṣṣah (unleavened bread):  “A new look at Hametz, Matza and everything in between”, “Deconstructing Matzo”, and “Leavened or Unleavened: A History”.  To summarize:  At the time, Egypt was the only place at the time where people made ḥameṣ (leavened bread).  Thus eating maṣṣah, even before leaving Egypt, was a symbolic rejection of Egypt and what it stood for.  This strikes me as a very elegant explanation.

2) My notes on the last chapters of Romans, following up on my notes on chapters 1-4 and 5-12:



Romans 13:1-7—Paul preaches submission to authorities.  This includes the government, which he claims are “God’s servants”.

Romans 13:8-14—Paul preaches love, claiming it is “the fulfillment of the Torah”, glossing over that at best just the moral commandments can be subsumed under the rubric of love.  Cites Exodus 20:12-13 in scrambled order are presented as subsumed under love.  Leviticus 19:18 is given as the source for the commandment of love.

Romans 14:1-23—Paul seems to be preaching that one who is strong in faith should not act in an antinomian way such to cause someone who is weak in faith to stumble, in particularly bringing up food and drink.  (Paul still brings no valid justification for antinomianism.)  Cites fragments of Isaiah 49:18 and Isaiah 45:23 dishonestly as if they were a continuous quote.

Romans 15:1-13—An attempt to back up the previous section.  Cites Psalms 69:10, a botched version of Psalms 18:50, a botched version of Psalms 32:43, Psalms 117:1, and a botched version of Isaiah 11:10 as if they had anything to do with Jesus.

Romans 15:14-22—Paul proclaims himself minister to the Gentiles, appointed by Jesus, trying to back up his appointment with his allegedly having performed miracles.  (Miracles are not actually valid proofs of prophecy when proclaimed by a heretic.)  Cites Isaiah 52:15 as if it had anything to do with Jesus.

Romans 15:23-33—Paul plans to visit Rome.

Romans 16:1-27—Paul sends greetings to various people.


Please note that this is entirely in keeping with Paul’s intellectual dishonesty and scholarly incompetence in the previous chapters.  I am not optimistic about the rest of his letters.


Peace and happy Pesaḥ.

’Aharon/Aaron