Telemarketing and Judaism
Today I got a phone call from a woman who was interested in selling me ad space in her magazine. It sounded kinda cool. She said that all she needed was to sit down with me for five minutes to show me the magazine and the ad spaces.
I told her that getting me to sit down for one minute was hard enough, let alone five. The best thing she could do would be to email me the info and that I would look it over and call her back today.
She replied, "I understand how busy you are. Is there any time when we could get together?"
I said, "Look, I'm being honest here...I'm not into meetings. Email me the info, though. I'm very interested."
She said, "Have a nice day" and hung up the phone.
I started thinking, "in the era of skype, email and instant messaging, who does meetings?" Apparently she hasn't gotten the memo that it's 2009 and the world is fine.
I realized that the company she works for is antiquated. The magazine itself is awesome, but her method for sharing it doesn't work anymore. I was interested, but she lost me because she couldn't come to me in a way that I could receive her.
This is the same with Torah. Recently, a guy posted on my facebook that he didn't think I knew anything about Torah, didn't know Hebrew and wasn't teaching Torah properly.
But what is proper? Is it proper to teach Torah in English? is it proper to teach Torah to women? what about sharing Torah with non-Jews? or putting Torah into braille for the blind?
We have to be willing to meet each other in a common place to share ideas. For me, that place is the internet. The telemarketer wouldn't meet me in our common place--I had to share her ideas in the place that SHE wanted, not a place we could both agree on.
In the end, she wasn't able to work with me, and if I couldn't agree to share her ideas in exactly the way she wanted, then I wasn't worth her time. And I wonder, how many people want the blessing of the Torah, but can't find someone willing to meet them where they are?
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Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Unkosher Sex and Acharei-Kedoshim
Parshat Acharei-Kedoshim
Unkosher Sex and Acharei-Kedoshim
This parshat talks about all kinds of different laws from not cheating your workers to not eating blood and a whole lot of talk about...well...sex
And that's where things get really interesting
It's a no-brainer that the Torah is written for men. Men were the only ones educated in early Middle Eastern cultures. And since it's written for men, it has many biases and prejudices against women.
It's obvious when you look at the sexual laws. All sexual laws, with the exception of one, are written with the prefix "If a man" or some other reference to the male as the one committing the offensive act. The only exception to this is Lev 20:16 which talks about women having sex with animals.
This parshat assumes that a woman's role in sexuality is really passive...like she's too dumb to be spoken to directly. The man is the leader but since both man and woman are sinning, they both get the ax...literally.
And that's the next weird thing about this parshat. The death penalty is applied in lots of areas...cursing your father...death....sorcery...death. But for some reason, screwing your aunt or sister isn't as bad as getting frisky with a barn yard animal. It just means you'll be childless.
It's things like this that keep Jews, especially counter cultural Jews, from practicing their Faith. And I don't blame them.
A lot of times, people giving Torah lessons will create a midrash or some Rambam inspired contemporary understanding of obscure laws. The idea is to make you more comfortable with shockingly weird, antiquated ideas...to make them more worldly and open. I think that this is dishonest. Remember, these laws were developed by nomadic, tribal people in the dessert thousands of years ago. Jewish laws were a reaction against the values of the Pagans: an idolatrous death culture, worshiping mortals as gods and delighting in excess.
Judaism is not about reform. It's not about being conservative, either...and its especially not Orthodox. Judaism is Reactionary...and it's that reactionary, hell, Revolutionary, way of looking at the world that puts Judaism and the DIY rock and roll scene right next to each other.
So let's look at our values as a society, and let's apply that Reactionary Judaism to it. Who knows what we'll discover about ourselves.
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
Unkosher Sex and Acharei-Kedoshim
This parshat talks about all kinds of different laws from not cheating your workers to not eating blood and a whole lot of talk about...well...sex
And that's where things get really interesting
It's a no-brainer that the Torah is written for men. Men were the only ones educated in early Middle Eastern cultures. And since it's written for men, it has many biases and prejudices against women.
It's obvious when you look at the sexual laws. All sexual laws, with the exception of one, are written with the prefix "If a man" or some other reference to the male as the one committing the offensive act. The only exception to this is Lev 20:16 which talks about women having sex with animals.
This parshat assumes that a woman's role in sexuality is really passive...like she's too dumb to be spoken to directly. The man is the leader but since both man and woman are sinning, they both get the ax...literally.
And that's the next weird thing about this parshat. The death penalty is applied in lots of areas...cursing your father...death....sorcery...death. But for some reason, screwing your aunt or sister isn't as bad as getting frisky with a barn yard animal. It just means you'll be childless.
It's things like this that keep Jews, especially counter cultural Jews, from practicing their Faith. And I don't blame them.
A lot of times, people giving Torah lessons will create a midrash or some Rambam inspired contemporary understanding of obscure laws. The idea is to make you more comfortable with shockingly weird, antiquated ideas...to make them more worldly and open. I think that this is dishonest. Remember, these laws were developed by nomadic, tribal people in the dessert thousands of years ago. Jewish laws were a reaction against the values of the Pagans: an idolatrous death culture, worshiping mortals as gods and delighting in excess.
Judaism is not about reform. It's not about being conservative, either...and its especially not Orthodox. Judaism is Reactionary...and it's that reactionary, hell, Revolutionary, way of looking at the world that puts Judaism and the DIY rock and roll scene right next to each other.
So let's look at our values as a society, and let's apply that Reactionary Judaism to it. Who knows what we'll discover about ourselves.
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
Friday, April 24, 2009
Torah Rejects Fundamentalism
Torah Rejects Fundamentalism
I have gotten several emails from Orthodox and Conservative Jews saying that my idea are not real Judaism, that I ignore the Oral Law and that I'm basically wrong on everything.
That's there choice. It's also my choice to argue right back.
This post was inspired by Reverend Paul Rodkey, a Presbyterian minister I had the pleasure of meeting while I was in college.
OK, so now your Jewish paranoia kicks in and you start to think I'm a heretic for learning something from the Gentiles. Booga, Booga! I hear they carry diseases and eat their children! Gimme a break...
G_d's power and presence in our lives can be explained by something as simple as a straight line. To prove it, a video.
Shalom!
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
I have gotten several emails from Orthodox and Conservative Jews saying that my idea are not real Judaism, that I ignore the Oral Law and that I'm basically wrong on everything.
That's there choice. It's also my choice to argue right back.
This post was inspired by Reverend Paul Rodkey, a Presbyterian minister I had the pleasure of meeting while I was in college.
OK, so now your Jewish paranoia kicks in and you start to think I'm a heretic for learning something from the Gentiles. Booga, Booga! I hear they carry diseases and eat their children! Gimme a break...
G_d's power and presence in our lives can be explained by something as simple as a straight line. To prove it, a video.
Shalom!
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Punk Torah: Anti-Fundamentalism, Parshat Metzora, Second Passover
Parshat Metzora Video
Parshat Metzora is proof that Fundamentalism will destroy you.
Metzora and Tazria essentially talk about the same thing: this weird green, scaley looking skin disease that can also effect your house and your clothes.
For centuries, people believes that the Bible was talking about Leprosy. This was a mistranslation from Hebrew to Greek. As a result, Lepers were cast away and treated like 2nd class citizens, believed to be spiritually unholy, since G_d, in the pre-modern world, was responsible for everything in nature and interjected in every aspect of human life.
We now know that it was not leprosy...and to be truthful, we still aren't completely sure what it was.
A lot of people hate the idea that there is something in the Bible that's "wrong" or "mistranslated". It goes against our sense of reality: that G_d dropped the Torah down from heaven, in complete and perfect form in an Artscroll hardback book, and handed it off to the Rabbi's who apparently had magic hands that wrote G_d's literal oral code.
Come on, people...that's insane.
Yet, what have we done as a people, a human race, in fact, because The Bible told us to? How many of us have gotten so wrapped up in the details of Law that we have forgotten to use the Brains that G_d gave us!
Second Passover is coming up soon. It's only celebrated in Orthodox communities, but I think it's a great day for those of us in the Cultural Disapora. In the Torah, Moses commands those who were unclean during passover to have a second passover. It was a time for them to make good with G_d since they didn't have the chance in the last passover.
So if you've ever been a fundamentalist and done something rotten because G_d told you to, use the second passover as a time to ask for forgiveness, not just from G_d, but from those you harmed in his name.
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
Parshat Metzora is proof that Fundamentalism will destroy you.
Metzora and Tazria essentially talk about the same thing: this weird green, scaley looking skin disease that can also effect your house and your clothes.
For centuries, people believes that the Bible was talking about Leprosy. This was a mistranslation from Hebrew to Greek. As a result, Lepers were cast away and treated like 2nd class citizens, believed to be spiritually unholy, since G_d, in the pre-modern world, was responsible for everything in nature and interjected in every aspect of human life.
We now know that it was not leprosy...and to be truthful, we still aren't completely sure what it was.
A lot of people hate the idea that there is something in the Bible that's "wrong" or "mistranslated". It goes against our sense of reality: that G_d dropped the Torah down from heaven, in complete and perfect form in an Artscroll hardback book, and handed it off to the Rabbi's who apparently had magic hands that wrote G_d's literal oral code.
Come on, people...that's insane.
Yet, what have we done as a people, a human race, in fact, because The Bible told us to? How many of us have gotten so wrapped up in the details of Law that we have forgotten to use the Brains that G_d gave us!
Second Passover is coming up soon. It's only celebrated in Orthodox communities, but I think it's a great day for those of us in the Cultural Disapora. In the Torah, Moses commands those who were unclean during passover to have a second passover. It was a time for them to make good with G_d since they didn't have the chance in the last passover.
So if you've ever been a fundamentalist and done something rotten because G_d told you to, use the second passover as a time to ask for forgiveness, not just from G_d, but from those you harmed in his name.
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Parshat Shemini: Keeping It Real
This parshat has three parts, all of which have one lesson: Keep It Real!
Parshat Shemini Video!
Aaron's sons approach the sacrificial alter and G_d kills them. Doesn't seem fair. We find out it's because Aaron's sons were drunk at the time. G_d was pissed off because they approached the holy while Under The Influence. They couldn't really appreciate what they were doing. Same thing with drunk driving: you don't really know what you are doing when you're smashed behind the wheel of a car. Moral of the story: G_d wants you to keep it real, for your own safety.
Toward the middle of the parshat, Aaron and Moses get into a debate about the semantics of ritual and mourning. Jews do this all the time: arguing over mundane, little things. I get this a lot as a blogger...there's always someone who thinks I'm too liberal, too conservative...or this one time, an evangelical Christian pretending to be a Jew. Now That's Jewish paranoia! Ultimately Aaron wins, which is funny because Moses has G_d on speed dial. Moses should be like that guy who won Jeopardy a million times in a row. But he wasn't. He was wrong. And he kept it real. Moral of the story: G_d wants you to keep it real, because you're not always right.
The last part of the parshat is the holy menu of animals that are good or bad to eat. No one knows why G_d wants you to eat Pastrami but stay the hell away from a ham sandwich...but I think it has to do with, you guessed it, keeping it real.
Ancient cultures believed that when you ate something, you absorbed its essence. So in kosher, animals that have negative traits (eating other animals, scavenging, eating crud off the bottom of the ocean) shouldn't be consumed. We have to keep it real by eating things that represent the way that we strive to be.
It makes sense, because Jews have redefined Kosher in the modern era, adding free range, vegetarian and organic option to the diet. We like environmental protection and cruelty free products because they help us to commune with a higher purpose. We realize that the crap we put into our bodies effects Creation...the Creation that G_d demand's we be stewards of. G_d wants you to keep it real, by making the food you put into your body as real as possible, too.
So whether it's rethinking that last beer before you get into a car, admitting defeat when you're fighting with someone, or even just picking a better lunch, G_d wants you to...you guessed it...keep it real...for your own sake...and his...or hers...whichever you prefer.
Parshat Shemini Video!
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
Parshat Shemini Video!
Aaron's sons approach the sacrificial alter and G_d kills them. Doesn't seem fair. We find out it's because Aaron's sons were drunk at the time. G_d was pissed off because they approached the holy while Under The Influence. They couldn't really appreciate what they were doing. Same thing with drunk driving: you don't really know what you are doing when you're smashed behind the wheel of a car. Moral of the story: G_d wants you to keep it real, for your own safety.
Toward the middle of the parshat, Aaron and Moses get into a debate about the semantics of ritual and mourning. Jews do this all the time: arguing over mundane, little things. I get this a lot as a blogger...there's always someone who thinks I'm too liberal, too conservative...or this one time, an evangelical Christian pretending to be a Jew. Now That's Jewish paranoia! Ultimately Aaron wins, which is funny because Moses has G_d on speed dial. Moses should be like that guy who won Jeopardy a million times in a row. But he wasn't. He was wrong. And he kept it real. Moral of the story: G_d wants you to keep it real, because you're not always right.
The last part of the parshat is the holy menu of animals that are good or bad to eat. No one knows why G_d wants you to eat Pastrami but stay the hell away from a ham sandwich...but I think it has to do with, you guessed it, keeping it real.
Ancient cultures believed that when you ate something, you absorbed its essence. So in kosher, animals that have negative traits (eating other animals, scavenging, eating crud off the bottom of the ocean) shouldn't be consumed. We have to keep it real by eating things that represent the way that we strive to be.
It makes sense, because Jews have redefined Kosher in the modern era, adding free range, vegetarian and organic option to the diet. We like environmental protection and cruelty free products because they help us to commune with a higher purpose. We realize that the crap we put into our bodies effects Creation...the Creation that G_d demand's we be stewards of. G_d wants you to keep it real, by making the food you put into your body as real as possible, too.
So whether it's rethinking that last beer before you get into a car, admitting defeat when you're fighting with someone, or even just picking a better lunch, G_d wants you to...you guessed it...keep it real...for your own sake...and his...or hers...whichever you prefer.
Parshat Shemini Video!
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
WORK WILL SET YOU FREE
Shabbos and the Holocaust
Video
Last night was Shabbos. And I worked.
I had to. As a musician, and one who lives in the Bible Belt of the USA, my career options are limited. As much as I wish CAN CAN and Punk Torah could pay my bills, which are pretty small since I'm a minimalist, the reality is that I need a day job.
So I worked as a temp at the convention center. For eight hours, I sat at a booth and gave people directions to the bathroom and the food court. Not a grueling job, but it's not as much fun as blogging and being Mr. Punk Rock guy.
While I was there, I felt guilty about working on G_d's holy day. I've been accused of being a workaholic and I have tried my best to chill out. But it's really hard. My friends like to make the joke about Patrick the Greedy Jew, always working to make that extra buck.
Then I remembered something I saw in a documentary on the Holocaust: a sign above the Auschwitz Concentration Camp that read, "Hard Work Will Set You Free".
If there is any truth to the idea that Jews are workaholics, it's pretty ironic that the agent of our undoing would be a work camp. Jews have always been the target of ridicule for their relationship to money and employment. Jews were barred from holding certain kinds of jobs and got into areas of the economy only when they were allowed: banking, media, brokering, and peddling, which eventually became retail. Anything they could take with them, when they were rejected from their temporary homes and forced to relocate like social pariahs.
I like to think that Punk Torah and CAN CAN are my mitzvot. They are the one thing I can do to please G_d and help the Jewish people. But I realize, too, that work will not set me free...even if it is work for Hashem.
Human beings are not meant to be work machines. We aren't supposed to be defined by what we do to pay the bills. We are defined by how we live our lives and the kind of people we are. That is the true meaning of Shabbos and the true meaning of being a punk rocker.
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
Video
Last night was Shabbos. And I worked.
I had to. As a musician, and one who lives in the Bible Belt of the USA, my career options are limited. As much as I wish CAN CAN and Punk Torah could pay my bills, which are pretty small since I'm a minimalist, the reality is that I need a day job.
So I worked as a temp at the convention center. For eight hours, I sat at a booth and gave people directions to the bathroom and the food court. Not a grueling job, but it's not as much fun as blogging and being Mr. Punk Rock guy.
While I was there, I felt guilty about working on G_d's holy day. I've been accused of being a workaholic and I have tried my best to chill out. But it's really hard. My friends like to make the joke about Patrick the Greedy Jew, always working to make that extra buck.
Then I remembered something I saw in a documentary on the Holocaust: a sign above the Auschwitz Concentration Camp that read, "Hard Work Will Set You Free".
If there is any truth to the idea that Jews are workaholics, it's pretty ironic that the agent of our undoing would be a work camp. Jews have always been the target of ridicule for their relationship to money and employment. Jews were barred from holding certain kinds of jobs and got into areas of the economy only when they were allowed: banking, media, brokering, and peddling, which eventually became retail. Anything they could take with them, when they were rejected from their temporary homes and forced to relocate like social pariahs.
I like to think that Punk Torah and CAN CAN are my mitzvot. They are the one thing I can do to please G_d and help the Jewish people. But I realize, too, that work will not set me free...even if it is work for Hashem.
Human beings are not meant to be work machines. We aren't supposed to be defined by what we do to pay the bills. We are defined by how we live our lives and the kind of people we are. That is the true meaning of Shabbos and the true meaning of being a punk rocker.
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
Tazria-Metzora
My mother secretly hopes that I'll become a doctor and give up this stupid punk rock stuff. Maybe if she sees this video she'll think it's for Med school and I'll be off the hook for a while.
This week's video is about period blood and semen and boils and leprosy. It makes a week of eating matzah REALLY delicious sounding.
The Torah does this a lot: you get into all kinds of deep, personal, spiritual stuff. Then all of a sudden, you're talking about the dumbest things like Hebrew fashion tips, how to properly clean a lesion and what to do if your neighbor's bull accidentally kills one of your animals.
I think there's a connection between the sacred and the profane and that punk rock and Judaism uniquely understand it.
Punk rock has taught me that, in life, you have to put up with a lot of crap to feel something genuine. That the only way to rebel against the authority figures who think you're too stupid to have a mind of your own, is to get into all the dirty parts of life that no one ever talks about: drugs, sex, violence and even blood, to get to something real and truly hardcore. Lou Reed did that in the 60's, singing songs about Heroine while the Beatles were singing songs about falling in love with pretty girls. The Sex Pistols talked about anarchy when the BeeGees were singing white boy soul music for John Travolta movies. Go figure!
Judaism is the same way: it's a rebellion against the Death Cults, teaching that we need to gloss over the important things in our world to focus on some eternal life somewhere else. Judaism makes you understand every dirty part of your fragile human life, because living is what life is all about!
Do you know why G_d gave us life? Because he wanted so badly for us to live it.
And that's what this parshat is doing; by getting you through all of life's dirty bits, all the gross things you don't want to hear about, you come through a stronger, happier, better person than you were before.
Parshat Shemini Video!
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
This week's video is about period blood and semen and boils and leprosy. It makes a week of eating matzah REALLY delicious sounding.
The Torah does this a lot: you get into all kinds of deep, personal, spiritual stuff. Then all of a sudden, you're talking about the dumbest things like Hebrew fashion tips, how to properly clean a lesion and what to do if your neighbor's bull accidentally kills one of your animals.
I think there's a connection between the sacred and the profane and that punk rock and Judaism uniquely understand it.
Punk rock has taught me that, in life, you have to put up with a lot of crap to feel something genuine. That the only way to rebel against the authority figures who think you're too stupid to have a mind of your own, is to get into all the dirty parts of life that no one ever talks about: drugs, sex, violence and even blood, to get to something real and truly hardcore. Lou Reed did that in the 60's, singing songs about Heroine while the Beatles were singing songs about falling in love with pretty girls. The Sex Pistols talked about anarchy when the BeeGees were singing white boy soul music for John Travolta movies. Go figure!
Judaism is the same way: it's a rebellion against the Death Cults, teaching that we need to gloss over the important things in our world to focus on some eternal life somewhere else. Judaism makes you understand every dirty part of your fragile human life, because living is what life is all about!
Do you know why G_d gave us life? Because he wanted so badly for us to live it.
And that's what this parshat is doing; by getting you through all of life's dirty bits, all the gross things you don't want to hear about, you come through a stronger, happier, better person than you were before.
Parshat Shemini Video!
Check out the Facebook page!
Also check out the Punk Torah YouTube channel!
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