Ramakrishna-Vedanta Society

THE VEDANTA SOCIETY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAAnnounces
A One-Day Spiritual Retreat
with

REB YAKOV LEIB HAKOHAIN (”KALIDAS”)

Leader of the Donmeh West

“THE CONTINUING INCARNATION OF GOD:
Hinduism, Kabbalah & the Theosophy of C.G. Jung”

November 3, 2007
Vedanta Retreat Center of the High Desert

For Reservations & Information Contact
date72537@mypacks.net

-hat tip to Sfeika D’oraisa

al tikri believe elo be’leive

    1.  I once heard from a Rav who was always bothered by how people talk and disturb others during davening. He then went on to explain it by saying “those people just don’t beleive.” If we believed in our tefilot, if we actually thought about the fact that Hashem is in front of us, then we would act differently. I appreciate the story and I hope it reinforces the point to others as it has for me.

1. Comment by Bizrizut — July 31, 2007 @ 1:21 pm

   ---

2. Bizrizut,
   Chas V’Shalom they ‘don’t believe’!! That rav didn’t understand the yideshe people. We are told that we are believers and children of believers thats who we are. Now to explain the lack of decorum in our shuls.
   As reb Avrom points out that with time we can become lax in our ‘respect’ for a beis hatfilah. When one realizes the enourmous potential there is in tefilah one can understand the tremndous desire to interrupt that very task. The Satan knows that tefilah is extremally valuable, and tries to minimize the effect by introducing all sorts of narishkeit into this task. (I always wondered why people can’t put their phone on ‘vibrate’ mode, but with this explaination I no longer wonder.) How many times do we get together each week, month, year, lifetime to daven? Is this the mark of people who don’t believe? When we daven 21 tefilos a week, 10 hours at a minimum per week, how can you say that we don’t believe? If its lip service, that should last 2-3 hours but 10 solid hours a week should profess our belief that there is a creator and he runs the world. I believe that anyone of the people that attend the minyanim daily would give up their lives al-kidush hashem in a nano-second.

   Lets not bad mouth our fellow yidden. I enjoyed the article because the author did not trash yidden, but merely elabarated on how lucky we would be if we follow the decorum lesson.

   Comment by klazno4 — July 31, 2007 @ 3:31 pm

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/9090/Out+Of+The+Mailbag+-+To+YW+Editor+(Getting+Ready+For+Chodesh+Elul).html -shitalphin

 

 

yankees now favorites to go all the way

BLOCKBUSTER DEAL LOCKS IT UP:

The switch-hitting Betemit, who has 10 home runs, 26 RBIs and a .231 average in 84 games for the Dodgers, adds versatility in the infield. A career .263 hitter who was serving as a reserve in Los Angeles, Betemit, 25, has played mostly third base in a five-year Major League career that also included parts of four seasons with the Atlanta Braves, but he’s also played second base, shortstop and right field.

-SHITALPHIN

מאידך גיסא

Comment by Sfeika D’oraisa on מאן פני אדון אהיה דא ילה”כ

געשעצטע עדיטארס פון שבע פרותת
אני הקטן באלפי ישראל קומ צו אייך מיט א בקשה און איך האף אז א בקשה פון יידישן הארץ גייט איר נעמען צום הארץ און נישט אפזאגען. איך בעט אייך בכל לשון של בקשה אויסצומעקן דער בילד פון דעם אדם רשע ילה”כ ימ”ש פון אייר זייטלץ ץ כ”האב גארניט קיין טענות אויף לאהילעס נאקעטע ציצקעס וכו” כאטש ס”איז אפשר נישט שטארק יידיש אבער מאידך גיסא עס קען זיין אז ס”ברענגט מער ליינערס צו די זייטל און כידועה ביי די חבדצקער סטאנדארטען איז אלץ מותר למען קירוב. אבער טוטץ מיר אלע א טובה און מעקטץ אויס די עקעלדיגע עמאנציפירטע אויסגעלאסענע פונים פון יענער פארשאלטענער עבודהזרהניקץ . חוץ פון וואס זיין גראבע גאמבע שיינט מיט א געפריילכע זעלבסטצופרידינקייט ווי א פנים פון א וויזניצער פויער ביים רביס טיש איז צו קוקן אויף אים אן איסור אזוי ווי ס”שטייט איו חז”ל אסור לאדם להסתכל בצלם דמות אדם רשע און איף דעם דער התר פון קירוב איז נישט דא. ישר כחכם און סרי טו באדער יו.

if you had only seen de Ruv in person…

הרה”צ ישראל’צע שליט”א ויזניץ מוצאי שבועות

HaRav HaTzadik Yirsultche Shlit”a, Viznitz

-a Yid

Faigy Ehrlenger, 109 Roebling Street. This is not a joke.

Satmar Zoineh

-shabsi tzvi

chabad semantics

Comment by DAVZH on it hurts to say this, but

I thought you died like a fucking cow and fell off the planet?!

Speaking of exorcism…

A 48-year-old Phoenix grandfather was killed by police after cops walked in on a gruesome scene:

Police reportedly found Ronald Marquez, of Phoenix, shirtless and choking his granddaughter as her 19-year-old mother, naked and bloody, looked on. The bloodied girl was gasping and screaming as her mother chanted and held a religious picture of some kind, police said….Two officers forced the door open slightly to find Marquez sitting on a bed blocking the door, police said.

The man held the girl in a headlock with one arm as he was squeezing her torso with his other arm, causing her to gasp and scream, police said. Investigators later learned the man was trying to “squeeze the demons out of the young girl”…

The mother could face charges as a result of the incident.

An Edgewater, FL city council member was recently reported to the police for battery, after attempting an exorcism on her teenage daughter. The girl had hit her father, and was cursing, and was “confrontational, and out of control”. The city council member and her husband denied the charges, which allegedly include the father’s asking the teenage girl, “Do you believe in G-d?” while twisting her arm. The father, who according to the daughter’s account considers himself “Christian and super powerful” poured oil on her in an attempt to “anoint” her.

Just a little snippet of today’s news you may have missed.

I just cleaned 30 gig

of garbage off my hard drive using sequoia
and noclone
good programs.

-mohammed

more moo-minded bloggers

Another fellow traveler galloping toward the geulah bareback aboard the sacred fat Sevenfatc-w

An excerpt from a post by lostgirlfound on her blog Future Prophet:

I’ve been thinking about my spiritual journey. See, I’m one of the masses in this generation who have kind of “woken up” to the fact that organized religion has done God a great disservice in many ways. Still, because of my relational connections, and my family’s needs, I can’t totally walk out of “church” (a.k.a. organized religion) and never look back.

So I live in a flux of such. I stand on the edge of what is westernized religion, and “see” how it has often been perverted and used for personal gain. I see, like so many organizations, something that started out pure and quickly became a tool for control and influence. A friend of mine the other night said, “They took Jesus, raped him, and then used his broken body to their own ends.” Strong language, but pretty accurate.

And further in her post she continues:

I got on my motorcycle, and rode, talking to God the entire time. Unlike a lot of my friends, I have no problem finding God in lots of other places. “Everything is spiritual” has become kind of a catch phrase for me. I wonder how long I could stay in the place I am — an outsider on the inside — knowing how to “play the game” but feeling like a religious “whore” when I don’t speak what I know.

On the edge. Guess I should make myself comfortable, because I think I’m going to be here a while.

Reading the rest of her post here…

lostgirlfound is also a contributor to de-conversion , another site full of fodder fit for cow grazing.

–apikorus l’shmoh

vincent gallo aka shmuel yaakov chaim falk (draft for part I)

 Shmuel Yaakov Chaim Falk – The Baal Shem of London

Vincent Gallo is a reincarnation of Yidel Bunim of Belz who was beaten to death by the mishmeres hatznius (modesty police) in Belz circa 1918. He reportedly slept with the granddaughter of the Belzer Rebbe who was 14 at the time. Yidel was 48. He had been a secret member of the Hapoel Hamizrachi and was channeling the spirit of Shmuel Yaakov Chaim Falk in his drushos.

…The indigenous stream of British magic, with it Christian Kabbalistic principles, received a strong infusion in the 1740’s in the person of Samuel Jacob Chayim Falk (c. 1710-1782). Falk was born in Galicia(Poland) into a messianic community inspired by Sabbatai Zevi. He became a noted Ba’al Shem(“Master of the Divine Name”, a term for a practical Kabbalistic magician) and narrowly escaped being burnt for heresy in Westphalia…he mixed freely with Christians, to the extent of seeming to have some agenda of his own, probably within Freemasonry…”

In a peerless study of occultism Marsha Schuchard concludes that Samuel Falk is probably the master in Kabbalism to two far better known figures; none less then Swedenborg and Cagliostro…

…Already as a child, he discovered a technique of breathing that he [Swedenborg] combined with prayer. His short book of the infinite tells of his collaboration with “other minds” and hints at some religiosexual experience akin to those described by Bohme and the Kabbalah. In 1736 when he was living in Amsterdam in close relations with the Jewish community, this technique lead to powerful visions of light which he called “the Sign”…

…In Amsterdam, Swedenborg also took up automatic writing and became increasingly preoccupied with the metaphysics of sex; something more freely discussed by Kabbalists than by Swedish Protestant. Loving intercourse between man and wife was, for these Jews, an essential part of the Friday night ritual, seen as reflecting the ecstatic creative act of God through his Shechinah and as hastening the reunion of the male and female principles. Professor Schuchard suggests that the combination of breath control, Hebrew studies, the Kabbalistic exegesis of the Bible, and a preoccupation with sex all point to an involvement of Swedenborg in Kabbalistic visionary methods specifically those of Abulafia.”…

-AniVaHo

American cheese and…a crisis of faith

One can be a Patriotic American and prefer Roquforte to Valveeta. When “Americans” insist that to be an American you must eat Valveeta and only Valveeta, and in fact Valveeta is the only product worthy of the name Cheese is when we start having a probem. Much of Jewish Orthodoxy, Hasidism, and especially the Chabad cult has degenerated this way. There a is great big world out there and many cultures do certain things a lot better than the orthodox Jews do. When intelligent orthodox people discover this is when the crisis of faith begins.

-comment by Twishandy on apparently, other bloggers think like us

as a woman, this horrifies me!!!!

Parents’ Ire Grows at Pedophile’s Unabashed Blog
By Jennifer Steinhauer, New York Times

LOS ANGELES, July 27 — The search for the self-described pedophile in the large-brimmed black hat commences nearly every day here, with findings posted on chat rooms frequented by mothers.

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Jack McClellan, 45, has no record.

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Jack McClellan, who calls himself a pedophile, has had Web sites in Seattle and Los Angeles detailing how and where he trolls for children.

He was spotted at a fair in Santa Clarita. He recently emerged from the Social Security office on Olympic Boulevard. He tapped away on a computer at the library in Mar Vista. Warnings have gone out. Signs have been posted.

And yet unlike convicted sex offenders, who are required to stay away from places that cater to children, in this case the police can do next to nothing, because this man, Jack McClellan, who has had Web sites detailing how and where he likes to troll for children, appears to be doing nothing illegal.

But his mere presence in Los Angeles — coupled with Mr. McClellan’s commitment to exhibitionistic blogging about his thoughts on little girls — has set parents on edge. One group of mothers, whose members by and large have never met before, will soon band together in a coffee shop to hammer out plans to push lawmakers in Sacramento to legislate Mr. McClellan out of business.

“Just the idea that this person could get away with what he was doing and no one could press charges has made me angry,” said Jane Thompson, a stay-at-home mother in East Los Angeles who recently read Mr. McClellan’s comments about a festival in her neighborhood in which he seemed to be describing her child.

Ms. Thompson is part of a movement to make it illegal to post images of children of any type on Web sites with sexual content or themes. “It became what I call a minor obsession of mine for the next six weeks,” she said, “to get to know his crowd and the things they talk about.” continue@ nytimes.com

-MonseyiNY

apparently, other bloggers think like us

playing a girl: ruminations on a constructed world 

The will of God and leaving Orthodox Judaism

By xanadudragonfly

My last week of saying good-bye to Orthodoxy has begun, and after a lengthy google search I could find nothing relevant for “leaving orthodoxy” and thus I take it upon myself to create the post I was looking for all day, or at least to start the process of creating the post I wanted to read.

There is very little out there for modern orthodox folks who are no longer buying it. The Ultra-orthodox apostates can turn to organizations such as Footsteps in the states. The organization guides people who seek it out towards basic skill training, GEDs, and other survival tools. (Unchosen by Hella Winston tells you all about this organization). I hear that Israel also has a simular NGO, but I could not locate its website, if you know about it please write in.

In either case the modern orthodox don’t need GEDs – they have higher education from top universities, what they need (that the ultra-orthodox might need as well) are people to talk to about their spiritual life. Unraveling a system of meaning is terrifying when you see no other system to replace it – no other will of God, besides the normative orthodox observance. After all, that is the party-line in mainstream orthodoxy – they, apparently, hold a monopoly on the will of God.

Thus many who leave, continue to believe that Orthodoxy is essentially – Judaism/truth/Divinity and they simply do not like it, and thus leaving symbolizes rejecting Judaism/truth/divinity.

There needs to be a place to go for conversation on this issue – a place where the Will of God is understood in contingent and multiplicities ways. Where the ethical problems in Orthodoxy can be discussed – Where can you go to ask a question and receive an intellectually honest answer that takes into account multiple currents in Judaism (halachic and non-halachic) alongside world thought at large. For example, at least for me this question was very important “Why would God make me a woman, if I feel post-comfortable in male roles?” As a very young woman, I loved the apologetics about the specialness of woman’s primary roles as private and domestic. As a 22, I understood the injustice of circumscribed lives. (I also understand that many people who are just and wonderful and thoughtful continue to find meaning in Orthodox.) There are hundreds of similar questions that challenge the ethics of a system where your birth determines what you can and cannot do.

The one thing I wanted to find on the web and could not is the following message. People do not leave Orthodoxy because it is to hard, they leave because they are seeking the Will of God. At least I am. If you are interested in discussing these questions from any end of the spectrum. Please post, I cannot wait to here form people who might know of some outlets for this conversation.

Entry Filed under: halacha, gender, torah, religion

-MonseyINY; hat tip to apikoris.l’shmoh

Sevenfatcow Editors Accused of Lackadaisicalum

Comment by wile e coyote on Wei?

this is the last time i post on this godforsaken blog. why??because the editors are dong way too much junk:

i put up a post. then i rework it and post it again. so which edition do the editors choose to delete?

those morons deleted the revised version. and to be quite honest if the editors cant be considerate enough to read my words then to hell with all of you