Malevitch, this is my white square!

This web site is populated by people who can't relate to what I write and mean. This loses all purpose for me. Curtains time...

Sorry Bryan for the post adjacency. But I have to say the following. I felt lower than low most of the weekend. I feel better now and I can announce definitively that all the pheasants (you know who you are) can kiss my ass! This includes the past, present and future plebeians. Rot in hell! I have a mental list of all of you bustards. May darkness that covers your conformist thinking choke your predictable snakie paths. I hope you drown in your own bile.

Bryan Mark Rigg

Dr. Bryan Mark Rigg has a new web site. You will find information about Bryan's books, availability for speaking engagements and works in progress. We wish Bryan a continued success in his research and publishing.
see also.

Dr. Gutfreund, the grandfather of Chabad in Cyberspace

Dr. Yechezkal Shimon Gutfreund is one of the trailblazers of Chabad in cyberspace.

TA: Dr. Gutfreund what is your background?
YSG: I have a PhD in Computer Science from UMass Amherst, I worked for years in the former Digital Corp. and GTE Labs (now part of Verizon). In the dot.com days I was one of the cofounders of furniture.com, later acquired by CMGI. Currently I am Chief Scientist & Founder of the Kesser Technical Group an R&D company.
TA: So tell us how it all started.
YSG: In the early nineties just around the time I got engaged I was going to Crown Heights where I stayed on Union St. with Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Kazen A�H. He was experimenting then with Keshernet (a subnet) and Usenet. I told R. Kazen that the web was the future dominant protocol and tried to steer him in that direction. Eventually R. Kazen founded Chabad.org.
I remember that in 1994 R. Yisroel Deren asked me and R. Kazen to make a presentation during Kinus ha Shluchim and to introduce the new medium.
Rabbi Kazen pitch was that �on the internet nobody knows you are a dog�. Meaning that not confined to "different" looks, etc. one can reach out to more people.
My pitch was that you can establish a virtual Chabad House, unencumbered by �brick and mortar�. Without territorial disputes and reach out to a far away places. This is how I spoke back then.

TA: That web site of yours kesser.org, I think it was the first Chabad web site and I don�t think you updated it since?
YSG: Yes, I added some material to it over the years.
TA: So R. Kazen founded Chabad.org?
YSG: In those days Chabad.org was hosted on the Dorsai Embassy (a name of a galaxy) servers. It is an interesting site run by a futurist who for some obscure reason found Chabad mission appealing. The site is still around. In fact he writes: �Based on the "high-tech cadre" of Dorsai, groups from Chabad Lubavitch to the Lebanese Students Association have served their respective communities and proven that peaceful coexistence is possible.�

The drunken sweetheart

Rumi says:
Suddenly the drunken sweetheart appeared out of my door.
She drank a cup of ruby wine and sat by my side.
Seeing and holding the lockets of her hair
My face became all eyes, and my eyes all hands.



Estelle Goldfarb the swirling Belgian dervish plays Lalo (mp3).
THE GREAT LOVE WILL NOT BE KILLED!

Simon Jacobson's son blogs from Budapest

Budapest: Impressions of a Grandson. This kid is a good writer just like his old age father.

Rumi to David Gray

David Gray, the swirling Irish dervish continues Rumi�s poetic love tradition in Falling Free(mp3) from the Flesh album.

Love poems by Rumi

Today inadvertently the wound of love was open again and the blood and the tears came gushing out� And now Rumi:

The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.
Translator: Coleman Barks


Estelle Goldfarb plays La Rosa!

Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.
****
Love rests on no foundation.
It is an endless ocean,
with no beginning or end.
Imagine,
a suspended ocean,
riding on a cushion of ancient secrets.
All souls have drowned in it,
and now dwell there.
One drop of that ocean is hope,
and the rest is fear.
****
By day I praised you
and never knew it.
By night I stayed with you
and never knew it.
I always thought that
I was me--but no,
I was you
and never knew it.
Translator: Shahram Shiva

Lord Frederic Leighton, 1830-1896, Old Damascus, Jewish Quarter

Last night you left me and slept
your own deep sleep. Tonight you turn
and turn. I say,
"You and I will be together
till the universe dissolves."
You mumble back things you thought of
when you were drunk.

The Kabbalah Chronicles, parts 3 & 4

Radar Online published the concluding two parts of the chronicles.

Hurt once and for all into silence

This song "To A Teacher" (mp3) is dedicated to the great Canadian Jewish poet A. M. Klein. Words and music by Leonard Cohen from the DEAR HEATHER album.

Hurt once and for all into silence.
A long pain ending without a song to prove it.
Who could stand beside you so close to Eden,
When you glinted in every eye the held-high
razor, shivering every ram and son?
And now the silent loony bin, where
The shadows live in the rafters like
Day-weary bats,
Until the turning mind, a radar signal,
lures them to exaggerate
Mountain-size on the white stone wall
Your tiny limp.
How can I leave you in such a house?
Are there no more saints and wizards
to praise their ways with pupils,
No more evil to stun with the slap
of a wet red tongue?
Did you confuse the Messiah in a mirror
and rest because he had finally come?
Let me cry Help beside you, Teacher.
I have entered under this dark roof
As fearlessly as an honoured son
Enters his father�s house.

Moshav at Coolidge Corner

Moshav Band plays the historic Coolidge Corner Theater on Thursday. Presented by Chabad of North Shore. See you there.


R. Yossi Lipsker says rock a roll into the North Shore with Chabad�


Moshav band says the noisy jokers that opened for us should be taken off the stage now!


R. Mayshe Schwartz of www.getchai.com says "Macht do California!"


Mendy and his brothers say hello with Red Sox hats times four.


R. Moshe Bleich says the mazikim should stay away from his brother in Ukraine.


Rabbi Lipsker of Philadelphia (Yossy's father) says "Budet Chorosho" to Rabbi Gurkov's son in law Rabbi Asher Bronstein of Andover, MA.


R. Shusterman says go North my son...


The Zanzer Rebbe grandson Rabbi Moishe Leiberman says I should look into Haskel Druer and the Volpe Rov, the great nafilim. He thinks Haskel Druer was the prototype of Chaim Guravitzer. He also says that Rabbi Dovid Wihnin was the last person of the great Lubavitcher tradition of Shedrin. And I should look in to the good people of the belorussian town of Shedrin.

Secretariat of the Referent Hodakov

Knowing the background of the Referent Hodakov this letter flows naturally. Interestingly enough there is not a single hint that the directive was in any way agreed or requested by the Rebbe.

Open Media 100

AlwaysOn and Technorati are pleased to present the first annual "Open Media 100," the power list of bloggers, social networkers, tool smiths, and investors leading the Open Media Revolution. (via Instapundit.com)
I will blog on this subject later and its relationship to the state of Jewish blogsphere.

The Landlord of the Lubavitcher Rebbe

Dr. Michael (Michoel) Wilensky address appeared in the Rebbe�s university registration records in Berlin.

Shaul Shimon Deutsch's writes on page 85 of the 2nd volume of the "Larger than life: The life and times of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson":

Dr. Michael (Michoel) Wilensky was the son of one of the most famous Chabad Chasidim. His father, Rabbi Chaim Ber Wilensky of Kremenchug, was considered one of the greatest minds in the area of Chasidic thought. He was known as one of the "Berelach" of Kremenchug. This was a phrase coined for a few great Chasidic scholars who were all named Ber who all lived in Kremenchug. The fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, the Rebbe RaShaB said of Chaim Ber Wilensky that "he was capable of giving twenty-one explanations on the mystical concept of Ein Sof.

Chaim Ber had a son named Michoel. In his youth, Michoel studied at a Chabad yeshiva. However, he wanted a secular education and entered the university. He received his doctorate from the University of Berne in 1912 and went on to specialize in mathematics at the University of Kazan, Russia. After the 1917 Revolution, he settled in Odessa. There, his interest in Jewish studies was aroused by Chaim Nachman Bialik, and he worked on the staff of Tarbut until 1920.

Staff of Dvir Publishing in Odessa, MW #18, Chaim Nahum Bialik #7

In 1921, Michoel managed to leave Communist Russia for Berlin, along with a group of Jewish intellectuals headed by Chaim Nachman Bialik. In Berlin, he worked for Bialik at the Dvir Publishing Company.

A group of Russian Jews in Berlin after they left with Bialik, MW#29, Chaim Nahum Bialik #24

While in Berlin, he edited Abraham Ibin Ezra's grammatical works, Safah Berurah and Moznayim. He contributed articles to historical journals and to the German Jewish Encyclopedia and worked with the Verein zur Gruendung einer Akademie fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums. His principal accomplishment in Berlin was the publication, in 1929, of Jonah ibn Gnach's Sefer Ha- Rikimah. (The Sefer Rikimah was published by Wilensky in Berlin. Volume I was published in 1929 and Volume II in 1931. It was republished after Wilensky's death. With the help and advice of the Rebbe, Dr. Shimon Bernstein edited and republished the book in Jerusalem, in 1964. The title page of Sefer Ha-Rikimah lists Dr. Wilensky's address as the same one as provided by the Rebbe on his registration records at the University.)

Did the Rebbe have a good relationship with his landlord? The answer is most definitely yes. Their friendship lasted until the end of Michael Wilensky's life in 1955. Dr. Wilensky came to America in 1935 and was Manuscript Librarian at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, the Reform rabbinical seminary. (See "The Refugee Scholars Project of the Hebrew Union College" by Michael Meyer. In Gary J. Robuck's article, "The Rescue of The European Scholar: The Hebrew Union College (1934-42)", he states: "In 1935, after careful consideration and inquiry, another call was issued. Dr. Michael Wilensky, a native of Russia living in Lithuania, was called to Cincinnati to catalog the manuscripts in the library. The terms of the call indicate that he should be hired for only one year at a salary of $2000.00. Presumably, Wilensky would return to Lithuania after the completion of his work."

However, in 1937, Wilensky was well ensconced in the college library and would stay there until his retirement. Separated from his wife and very alone culturally at the college, Wilensky quickly fell ill and proved quite some burdensome for Dr. Morgenstern. Dr. Wilensky, like many refugee scholars who came to this country, was so uncomfortable that Morgenstern was sufficiently aroused to compose a letter to Dr. Ismar Elbogen, head of the Hochshule Fur Die Wissenschaft Des Judentums, who had recommended Wilensky originally.

[Dr. Morgenstern wrote]: �We brought him here primarily not because we were so eager to have our manuscripts catalogued at just this particular time when our financial situation is anything but good, but because we felt obliged to do something for those Jewish scholars in distress. He has misunderstood his position here completely and it seems impossible to make him appreciative.�

According to Michael Meyer's article, Mrs. Wilensky wrote an emotional letter to Morgenstern claiming that, not only was there no work for her husband in Lithuania, but that leaving America could lead to a fatal stroke. The college then paid for a ticket for her to join her husband in America. He remained at his cataloging task until his retirement in 1943. He compiled a catalog of all the manuscripts in the institution's library. In his will, he left his private library of books and manuscripts to the Rebbe. (Told to the author [SSD] by Rabbi Aron Chitrik. Also mentioned in his letter to the editor published in the Algemeiner journal, Sept. 24,1994, p. B2.)

Not only did Wilensky will his library to the Rebbe; in his life-time, he gave the Rebbe four original handwritten books of Chasidus. Three of them were handwritten manuscripts of the Tzemach Tzedek (the third Lubavitcher Rebbe). In a letter the Rebbe sent to Wilensky he writes (Igrois Kodesh by the Rebbe. Vol. 9, pp.254-55. 11A. Ibid.): Knowing you from back then [a reference to Berlin], I would like to know how you are doing and if there is any way I can be of assistance to you. In that same letter the Rebbe also writes: Thank you for notifying me about the four bichlach [handwritten books of Chasidus - Translator's note], of which three are from the Tzemach Tzedek. I would like to know if their contents have already been printed or not. If there are any costs involved, I would be glad to pay them.

Wilensky, who was ill at the time, could not visit the Rebbe. However, the Rebbe sent Rabbi Yosef Goldstein to visit Wilensky and pick up the Chasidic manuscripts. Wilensky gave the Rebbe not only the books, but also a copy of a letter that he had received from the Previous Rebbe. The Rebbe also recalled his memories of Dr. Wilensky on various occasions. In one letter, the Rebbe wrote to Dr. Shimon Bernstein (who was involved in reprinting Wilensky's notes and corrections to Sefer Rikimah) about his memories of Dr. Wilensky in Berlin: I knew the deceased o.b.m. [a reference to Dr. Wilensky]. He was very talented and very meticulous. I was in Berlin when Dr. Wilensky was working on his book. I saw him totally engrossed, spending days and nights on his book. In a fascinating letter which I discovered in the Genazim archives (Hebrew Poets Society) in Israel, written by the Rebbe to Mrs. Wilensky, the Rebbe writes with high praise of the late Dr. Wilensky.

When the Rebbe was informed of Dr. Wilensky death, he sent R. Yisroel Jacobson to Cincinnati to represent him at the Funeral. Dr. Samuel Atlas a colleague of Wilensky in HUC wrote a very interesting letter to R. Y.Y. Weinberg describing the events surrounding Wilensky death and funeral.

end of SSD quote.

1938 Hebrew Union College copied the 1933 effort by New School University in establishing a School for European scholars. HUC initiated a rescue effort of 10 prominent scholars to form "The Jewish School in Exile":

(From left) Samuel Atlas, taught Talmud at the Institute of Jewish Studies at Warsaw; Abrahan Joshua Heschel, of the Juedisches Lehrhaus at Frankfort-am-Main and the Institute of Jewish Studies at Warsaw; Michael Wilensky; Eugen Taeubler, Professor of History at Heidelberg; Julius Lewy, Professor of Semitic Languages and Ancient Oriental History at Giessen and Director of its Oriental Seminary, Curator of the Hilprecht Collection of Babylonian Antiquities at the University of Jena and editor of the publications of the Vorderasiatisch-Aegyptische Gesellschaft of Berlin; Julian Morgenstern, HUC President; Alexander Guttmann, taught Talmud and Mishnah at the Hochschule fuer die Wissenschaft des Judentums at Berlin; Isaiah Sonne (hidden), taught at the Rabbinical College in Florence and later was Director of the Rabbinical College on the Island of Rhodes; Eric Werner, Instructor in Jewish Music and Liturgy at the Theological Seminary of Breslau; Franz Landsberger, Associate Professor of History of Art at Breslau; and Franz Rosenthal, a prize-winning Semiticist.

Open to interpretation

Somebody called me today and interviewed me for 20 minutes on a range of questions. It was a survey from Indiana U. They ask you about your religion and then they ask you:
1. The Bible is the word of G-d that should be taken literally.
2. The Bible is the word of G-d that is open to interpretation.
3. The Bible was authored by men.

I answered 2 because I thought 1 was a karaite answer. Was I correct?

mentalblog.com links

Send words of courage to the Simple Jew.
treppenwitz: I thought you should know...
My Cousin Jonathan Blog: Four Years.
pearlies of wisdom: Comedic Relief?
Jerusalem Post: Dorm scuffle highlights Ponevezh infighting.

Renzo Piano, Roof structure at The Giovanni and Marella Agnelli Art Gallery at Lingotto, (2000-2002), gravity defying experiment.


Renzo Piano, Auditorium Niccol� Paganini, 2001. As close as it gets to souring music in architecture. Sophisticated simplicity of structural expression and proportions.

Atlas in Vienna

From bitter searching of the heart,
Quickened with passion and with pain
We rise to play a greater part.
This is the faith from which we start:
Men shall know commonwealth again
From bitter searching of the heart.
We loved the easy and the smart,
But now, with keener hand and brain,
We rise to play a greater part.

Good people of the world unite

I think I am going to have some ice-cream tonight. A cone not a cup. Then I will sit on a bench and watch the stars and the birds and smell the flowers. A cool groovy feelin� Ahhhh�. May be I will call the TNLR above and talk about nothing...

Mendy says when he grows up he will be a Red Sox player and a Blogger. He already has a name for his future web site: mendelblog.com

Matisyahu is all set to tour this fall

Mobius is reporting that Matisyahu's all set to tour this fall, with new dates announced on his website.

Thursday, August 4, 2005, 7:30pm, Boston, Matisyahu will open for Trey Anastasio, Bank of America Pavilion.
Monday, July 11, 2005, 7:00pm, Matisyahu will support Luciano at Ocean Mist Matunuck, RI.
(Listen to Luciano on the bottom of the The ways of G-d post.)

Mobius also links to the new a dub remix of Matisyahu�s track, "Warrior", "by famed reggae producer Bill Laswell, the same man entrusted by Island Records to handle the dub remixes of Bob Marley's work released in 1996."

A new Orthodoxy? Not gonna happen

The Google Hador formelly known as Godol Hador writes: Not much chance of effecting any major changes to Orthodoxy in the current climate. The few people who tried ended up non-Orthodox, or outcasts,...Still, I think its interesting to debate these issues, to imagine 'what if' and to continue to study and learn.

Wickedly creative

I think I wrote about postsecret and then deleted the post (I have moments of self censorship sometimes). "PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard". He has been getting a lot of creative cards after the site was profiled in the New York Times. It is wickedly dark, wickedly creative and wickedly funny.

Out of Step Jew's epiphany is now in step

Honesty:

Sometimes you have an epiphany and sometimes things stew slowly in your mind until they reach a point where they need a release. Ever since high school (at MTA), when I read Yechezkel Kaufmann's The Religion of Israel, I have been suspicious of the intellectual honesty of my rabbis. While in YU I was called a "pinko" (very popular back in the 70's) by one (then) young rav of mine for questioning a moral conclusion of a statement in the gemara.

My questions are these: Do the rabbis of today fear that the abandonment of dogma will lead to the abandonment of Halakhic practice or do they fear the abandonment of dogma in and of itself? Do they not trust that our 3,000 year intellectual history can withstand the challenges of contemporary science, philosophy and in the broadest sense of the term, sociology? Or do they really believe, that the dogma's that we have been taught are so much a part of our belief in God, that without them, we might as well not keep the Shabbat?

read the great post.

Tallitot and Siddurim for Iraq

Jews in Green: Soldiers stationed in Iraq are looking for anyone willing to donate Tallitot and Siddurim.

mentalblog.com links

algemienerjournal: Google does Israel.
Bloghead: Nothing new under the sun ... Kabbalah Centre, London, 1780. Free mason - R' Shmuel Falk AKA 'The Baal Shem of London'.
Treppenwitz: Photo Friday. Great photo on the bottom with the rifle.
My Obiter Dicta: Euripides was Right...
New Bobover blog: NO MORE LOSHON HORA & MOTZEE SHEM RAH!
The Pilegesh blog has lasted longer that three hours.
YudelLine: Funny photo.
Chakira writes about tensions between Chasidim and Misnagdim in Lakewood, NJ: The Return of the Misnagdim (The Demographic Time-Bomb).
Jerusalem Post: Tara Herman, 27 from New York to Tel Aviv.
yingele: Where Is The Love. I gotta keep my faith alive, until love is eventually found.

MACHINA in Boston

MACHINA rocks Boston's City Hall Plaza tomorrow (wait its 1:40 AM so it is today then).

UPDATE:

Machina at the City Hall Plaza in Boston today.


About 80% of the crowd are Israelis.


The visitors from NYC.


This was funny. The had 300 strong Boston Police riot unit guarding hungarians who are afraid of chiwawas.


The visitors from Israel.


This fellow told me "Ich darf tshiva ton".

The Kabbalah Chronicles

OK, everyone is linking to the RADAR's investigative report on the Hollywood's Hottest Cult. Part One and Part Two have been published and conclusion is due on Monday.

The expose is somewhat informative and rather amusing. I am not sure I still understand what exactly is the New Age and why it is wrong to try to communicate to others in a language they understand? But I found the following approach interesting:

The Bergs haven�t relied just on rabbis for help. The Centre sometimes hires ghostwriters to produce its books. The Centre has advertised for writers on the website Craigslist. In keeping with the Centre�s increasingly aggressive plan to expand, according to sources, the writers are urged to study spiritual best-sellers and mimic them using Kabbalah Centre lingo. Many of the Centre�s new books are stripped of Jewish context.

Also since PR mongering and fundraising is the most respectful profession in Lubavitch today and like Larry Seinfeld used to say "nothing wrong with that", so why do they pick on Bergs? There is a thirst for spiritually in this country and the phonies of the world, TV evangelist, etc, run the most profitable business around. Heck some of the Lubavitchers certainly make a ruble or two selling food for the soul. And as we know Lubavitchers can do New Age with the best of them.

I also need to read something form Bergs to form an opion on their content. But when Philp Berg is quoted saying: "Stay away from the frum, they will chew you up for breakfast and spit you out for dinner"- I can�t help but think that this sounds true.

Freed Deemon

Mikhail Vrubel, The Deemon Seated, 1890. Oil on canvas, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

Nick Bradbury is the programmer who created FeedDeemon, the best RSS tool today. Few months back he sold his enterprise to Newsgator. I found his current blog post very interesting. It talks about a manic creative burst.

Baal Tshuva Rabbi Berel Levy

Rabbi Yitzchok Hanoka who is married to Berel Levy�s granddaughter was visiting his parents in Boston for Shovues. So I asked Yitzchok what he knows about R. Levy and what he knows about his connection to the Malach. Evidently he knew little beyond the article that was written by his father in law R. Don Yoel Levy. Then on Friday an interesting information surfaced from the "Transcriber" (see Apart from the Melochim but never removed).

The "Transcriber" contributes this taped talk by the Malach�s son R. Refoel Zalman. We publish it here as is and in all probability this is the first time this information sees the light of day. Some of the words are missing as in the original tape recording.

Rabbi Refoel Zalman's Feter Berel [R. B. Levy�s grandfather] and Nephew Berel [R. B. Levy nephew of the Malach]

I remember once there was a boy who went to yeshiva and then there was a rumor that he [some man named Hershel] spoiled the yeshiva, that he got mitzhametz. So he became a Hebrew teacher. So, I don't know if it was Chanukah, it was some kind of a Yom Tov it came Shabbos morning. Shabbos always in the morning, about 4:00 we would get up and go in shul, because in the house there was no light. So it burned down all the lights, but there is light in shul. So I met Hershel, his name was Hershel. So I was talking to him. My Feter Berel [Berel Levy�s grandfather] was sitting there, maraving the sedra, whatever. Because he couldn't learn, my Feter Berel was not a lamden. But, you know, he would say Tehillim, marave the sedra and I think that he used to learn Shulchon Oruch every day, too, and that's all. So he sees me and he pulls me over. He said, "Tur mit em nit raiden. Tur nish mit em raiden. Er iz gevoren a Hebrew teacher. Gae ahaim und gae shlofen." This was my Feter Berel. "Nish raiden, gae shloft."

You don't see, nowadays, his type. Such an oxshen, such an oxshen, you couldn't move him! Especially when it came to the shtible, aiin klainikyte. Everything had to be like our forefathers did. Any improvement. For instance, they wanted to make better benches, because the benches were just? . So they made a motion. No! "Because oib mir darfen hobben good benches, zay would have und oib zay halten nisht azoy mir darft nisht."

What happen to his children? None of them, none of them. I'll tell you something: Once I asked my father, because Berel [R. Berel Levy], he was born here in America and when he became a Baal Tshuva he must have been about? . How did he become, Berel? It happened that my father had a friend, Weiler [this is collaborated in the Don Yoel's article]. Weiler had a son who was a teacher in a Talmud Torah. Berel's parents lived also in the Bronx not far from my father, but they never had to do, anything with my father. So the teacher tells his father Mr. Weiler, so he said to him, "Der Rebben's nephew [R. B. Levy], he has an inclination more to Hebrew than to his English." So he said that it would be more appropriate that they should take him out and send him to Yeshiva D'Bronx.

So Weiler once came to my father and told him what his son said in the conversation. So my father was tsukrigged with the Yeshiva D'Bronx said to Weiler that maybe he can influence him he should come to my father and send him to Torah V'Das. It was very easy, because Weiler was going from the same station, since they lived? from my father it was about 10 blocks, but from Weiler it was close. In other words, if you have to take the subway, you have to take the Jill[?] Avenue to both of them. So he could go with Weiler and come back with Weiler, because he was too young, yet.

So the following z'man, before Succos, he started going into Torah V'Das. My father spoke to Mendelovitch and told him he should take him in and, of course, he took him in. So this Berel, he started to become? he went there up to about Chanukah. So it came about Chanunkah, about five or six or eight weeks he would come Friday. He would come home, because in Yeshiva Torah V'Das they would learn half a day, only until 1:00. Then he would come home and stay home.

One Friday he comes home, he takes a bath and all dressed up and he goes. He's goes away, he told his mother, he's going back to yeshiva. So, his mother starts hollering, what are you meshugga? She says, do you have a place where to sleep? He will find it. What's the matter? He says, "I cannot eat in your house, because you cook on Shabbos." So she got excited, you know. After all, he is her child. She forgot that she is not supposed to. So she got excited, she said, "Okay, let's see. Let's go to your uncle and if he will tell you to go, I will let you go. Because I know," she says, "that he will tell you to be home." She forgot that she will get h---.

So she comes with him to my father, Friday. So my father gave her, he gave her. He said, "You goyka ira!" You know what goyka means? You goya. "Berel's in tsoras because l'kovod Shabbos!" My father couldn't imagine. He said, "Berel," zogt er, "zol hobben Shabbos by mir. Okay, let him stay here. And ich tur by dir du tur nish tuen a melocho oiched." L'kovod Shabbos!

To make a long story short, what could she do? She wanted him to poskin the shila. She had to throw out all of her dishes.

The reason I tell you all of this is because I want you to know his background, Berel's background. And he was getting frummer every week. I would come to New York, so my father would tell me about Berel. Because Berel was born the week when we arrived here. My father was to the bris, yet, about three days? we came Friday and in the week was the bris. So I know how old is Berel, I remember when he was born and I know the story.

So, I once asked my father, how come? After all, his upbringing: he didn't have an upbringing. His origin: he is not a kosher child, anyway. So how come it should be? So, you know what my father said? My father says, he said, it's not surprising to him. He said, the meserios nefesh from his Feter Berel. So, of all the family, he finally won. My father told me this way.

So my father says to mir, "Kenst zennen from the Gemorrah. The Gemorrah says that you shouldn't marriv an ooilay an av lay. Even if a child is not frum, you dare not distinguish him from the other children if you aing given the yerusha. Why? Because the Gemorrah says you don't know what in the future generations will come out. Therefore, he, himself, okay, it's all right. But you see it comes out a generation or two later. This is what happened, he said, with Berelen. He's Feter Berel's an ainikel. It came from Feter Berel. This is what my father told me about Berel. He never saw his grandfather. His grandfather died before my mother even. So he died about five, six years before we left for America.

Mohammed al-Mahdi, 37, formerly named Michael Sharovsky, prays at his house in the West Bank city of Hebron June 16, 2005. Al-Mahdi, who was born Jewish in Azerbaijan, immigrated to Israel and lived as a Jewish settler in the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron. Seven years ago he converted to Islam and now Al-Mahdi lives in the West Bank city of Hebron, married to a Muslim woman. Picture taken June 16. REUTERS/Nayef Hashlamoun

CANALETTO, Perspective, 1765, Oil on canvas, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Physical instinct

Nice Jewish Girl AKA Never Been Kissed is blogging again: She writes:

"Well there is not much I can do about it. I have already posted that I do not feel financially or emotionally able to raise a child by myself right now and also I do not intellectually feel comfortable with the idea of bringing a child into the world without a father, when there are so many babies available for adoption who have no parent at all. But it is interesting that the physical instinct to be a mother is so strong. And it is very hard to overcome one�s physical instincts. It seems that so much of my life is about that. Which leads me back to the question, by lifting myself above my physical instincts, am I being holy, or am I being stupid?"

A message to Jews in Zagreb and elsewhere

Too bad Rabbi Kotel Da-Don was dismissed. We understand that your comity is very small. But no matter how small it is there is room for competition. Seek alternative financial resources. Create new unaffiliated synagogue, school and kindergarten. Start small and lead by example. Do not try to reform an organization and an institution with a record of chronic failure. This is terribly complicated because the scares resources are under the thumb of the reactionaries. But we have no other choice in Zagreb, in Boston and virtually in every place where there is a Jewish community. We need to start from scratch.

But then again some say the Europe is finished not only for Jews. Washington Post: The End of Europe.

Berel Levy, touched by the Angel

I first met Berel Levy in Moscow in 1978 or 79. I remember it very well. I walked into the Kleiner Beis Medrash in the Archipova Shule. I think it was a fast day because there was a Kriyas HaTeyre on Mincha. Next to Berel Levy who was wearing a Russian fur hat was Michoel Shneider. This was also the first time I have seen Michoel, who is one of the most significant personalities amongst Russian Jewry in the past 30 years.

Michoel had bushy peyos then, a stunning picture in Moscow. I remember the entire scene as if it was today. I remember how Michoel Shneider was given a Hagba, how he raised the Torah and how he found his way to sit down on the elevated bench behind the bimah.

I have later spent a many Shabosim davening next to Berl Levy in the Simpson Shule in Boro Park. He looked at me with an air of presumed superiority. Never talking to me on a personal level. Never asking me a direct question. Considering his constant yapping about his achievements in Russia this lack of intellectual curiosity was glaring. The only time I have seen him speaking with passion about a subject was when he delivered his "vinegar" defense (some of you might still remember the story). I have to say that he fit in Boro Park rather well. Avrohom Aaron Rubashkin remained a Neveler but Berel Levy became a Boro Parker through and through. But this is not the subject really.

Berel Levy�s grandfather was Malach�s brother. The Malach was Berel Levy�s inspiration. Don Yoel Levy writes:

"Growing up in America in the 1920's, outside of New York City, was not conducive for someone wishing to be an observant Jew. Consequently, at the age of ten, a young Berel decided to leave home and move in with his uncle. The move enabled him to attend the Yeshiva Torah V�Daas. The subway ride to Torah V'Daas was over an hour and Rabbi Weiler, a Torah V'Daas teacher, would accompany my father and learn with him each way.

Berel Levy's uncle, Avrohom Ber Levine, was known as "the Angel". He was recognized as an extremely devout and brilliant person. In those years, assimilation was becoming a real problem for the Jewish community. Thus, Rabbi Mendelovitz, the principal of Torah V'Daas, asked Rabbi Levine to teach Chassidus to some of the older students. He included his nephew, young Berel, among his students. Rabbi Levine had a strong influence on these students and many of them refused to continue their public high school education. Rabbi Levine was a man of impeccable habits. His desire to do the correct thing, no matter what others would say or do, deeply affected my father at that time and for the rest of his life. There were times in those years that my father, having no other place to sleep, would spend nights on a bench in the shul.

Even without much previous religious training, my father utilized his prodigious capabilities to their fullest to become an outstanding student. When he was sixteen, his uncle passed away. My father's spiritual guide, Rabbi Yisroel Jacobson, gave him constant guidance and, at his suggestion, my father decided to leave Torah V'Daas to go to the Lubavitcher Yeshiva in Otwock, Poland. He received no money from his parents and raised the money for the journey himself."

A photo of Michoel Shneider I took in his Maale Adumim house about 3 years ago.

mentalblog.com googling

try googling: what is lubavitcher movement

Some of the other amusing Keyphrases used on search engines that ended up on mentalblog.com:
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The life and legacy of Ben Zion Weberman

Schneur Zalman of NY comments to the Malach�s Yarzheit first day of Shavuos:

One can get an idea of the Malach's hashkofes and deyes in Otzar Igres Kodesh put out without his name. This volume contains letters to his son Rav Zalman and I believe to Rabbi Asher Zelig Magalioth an interesting Polish Jew in Jerusalem who turned extremist. Recently a short bio of the malach was included in a collected bio of the first 3 "deyres" of Lubavitch Chabad. The author is Lemel Schwartz. I will not comment on the quality of the book. I am certain(?) that these books are available in Williamsburg book stores. A nephew of the current leader of the group now a professor of geography in Hawaii has written a bio "on line" in English of his grandfather Mr. B. Z. Weberman which includes data on the Malach as this lawyer was very close to Rav levine.

Jewish Zagreb torn apart

Judenrat: An outsider Rabbi is dismissed. Native nonreligious citizens versus devote aliens. A story that is playing on a larger scale all over Europe. A cultural divide in a tiny community of survivors. How can we help?

The boxing Jews keep on punching

Roman Greenberg ko's 'The Griz' in Vegas.


"The Star of David" Salita dominates Brown!
We did write about the two here and here.

jewish.ru hacked

mosnews.com: Russian Ultra-Nationalists Target Jewish, Human Rights Sites. "Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia (www.jewish.ru) were attacked and shut down."
mosnews.com: Nazi Govt. Wanted to Deport Jews to Soviet Union Before Great Patriotic War (AKA WWII).

The ways of G-d

My father died on the Second Day of Shovues 24 years ago. This picture was taken in the 50s I believe, after 7 years in the army. He is buried in Moscow's Vostryakovskoye cemetery.


My father�s oldest brother Solomon. Died of wounds when his tank was hit during a battle with the nazis. Exact date or place of burial unknown.


My father�s older brother Volodya. MIA in a battle with the nazis. Exact date or place of burial unknown.

Luciano sings "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan in the memory of the brothers�

Chabad haters and the lunatics - two sides of the same coin

770 Bochur comments to From Chabad to Elokism post:

The point is that in all matters holy and refined and important, it is the easiest to go wrong. As was once said about Shir Hashirim, the holiest of books: the problem is not that it is difficult to understand, but that it is so easy to misunderstand.

This is true even before we take into account an active desire to actually misconstrue what the Rebbe/chassidus in general has to say on the subject. Chassidus explains that the main quality of the Sefirah of Chochmah is Bittul. In practical application, that may mean that any true Chacham must posses the humility of approach necessary to understand what is going on, rather than presumptuously preach and dismiss it.

As Rabbi Immanuel Schochet wrote a few years ago, both the Chabad-haters and lunatic fringe of Lubavitch have exactly this point in common: the presumptuousness that precludes any real understanding, let alone communication. In this respect, they are in reality two sides of one and the same coin.