Three Little Words

Another strange bit of Christian preaching on the radio this morning, on the subject of the story in which Abraham, in his travels, tells everyone where he's staying that his wife Sarah is his sister, and the king, Abimelech, therefore thinks it's okay to bring Sarah to his harem, because she's very beautiful. God comes to him in a dream and tells him that he has sinned by stealing another man's wife, so Abimelech goes to Abraham and asks why he lied about Sarah being his sister. His answer occurs in Genesis 20:11-13:

11 Abraham said, "I did it because I thought, 'There is no fear of Elohim at all in this place. They will kill me because of my wife. 12 Besides, she is my sister anyway, the daughter of my father (though not the daughter of my mother), and she became my wife.' 13 When Elohim made me leave my father's house, I said to her, 'This is how you should show your loyalty to me: everywhere we go, say of me, 'He is my brother.'"

The preacher suggested that we take notice of the words "because I thought" in Abraham's speech. Do you notice, said the preacher, that Abraham doesn't say "because I prayed"? That's why Abraham, and the rest of us, get into trouble - we think when we ought to be praying, because compared to God even the wisest of us is a moron. (Okay, I don't remember whether he used the word "moron", but you get the picture.)



Sorry, preacher - wrong, at least from a Jewish perspective.

The ancient rabbis tell us that God wants our prayers, all right, at least in the sense that He can be said to "want" anything - that is, God wants us to pray because doing so bring us closer to Him, and that's good for us. On the other hand, God also wants us to think, learn, and gain wisdom, rather than relying on Him for absolutely everything as this preacher seemed to advocate. A midrash tells us that when the Hebrews found themselves at the shore of the Red Sea with the Egyptians closing in from behind, Moses prayed to God for deliverance, and God's answer was "This is no time to pray - get moving!" Whether Abraham's thought was correct or otherwise, inferring from the words "because I thought" that all thought leads to error is just plain foolish. Besides, if God disliked Abraham's thoughts, in this case or any other, why didn't He punish Abraham for his mistake? Instead of punishment, Abraham gained great wealth from this incident - Abimelech gave him sheep and goats and money and let him live in the best part of his kingdom. "Because I thought," indeed...

Benshlomo says, Keep talking, preacher.

Pictures Not on My Wall

Last week, I went to see the Basquiat exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art here in L.A. Little Miss is coming to see it with me this evening. Man, I can hardly wait to find out what she makes of all this stuff.

I'm neither an art professional, in any sense of the word, nor am I one of those "I don't know much about art but I know what I like" types. So I feel qualified to say this: By most objective measures, some of this stuff is just plain ugly. Even the most technically able objects in the exhibit are unbeautiful at best.

Most of the conversations about the man's work consist of incidents from his life, his uneasy relationship with the people who commissioned and bought his paintings, and the fact that he died so young. There's not too much discussion or agreement about what makes his stuff good or bad. What's more, if this exhibit is anything to judge by, a lot of his things look very much alike.

A long time ago I went to an Impressionist exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Most of the paintings were by people who Art History has decided were true artists, despite the opinions of their contemporaries, who thought they were a bunch of poseurs. You find stuff like theirs in dentist's offices and hotel lobbies now. I enjoyed the paintings, walking at a pretty good pace through the halls, and then I saw a Cezanne that looked something like this.


It wasn't too different from the other Cezannes on the walls. It wasn't even very big. I stood there staring at the thing, trying to figure out why it drew me so much more strongly than anything else I had seen that day. I'm still not sure.

Some of the paintings at the Basquiat exhibit affected me that way too. By that measure, at least, he was an artist.

(Hey, Ma, lookit me - I finally learned how to post pictures!)

Benshlomo says, Shut your mouth and open your eyes.

Judge Roberts Gets a Pass for Karl Rove

I'm not entirely displeased with George Bush's nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court - it's probably about as good as we can do under the circumstances - but I notice that the press has taken the opportunity to drop the ball on the story of the evil shmoo.

So, in response to a request to all us traitorous liberals from MoveOn.org, I sent this letter to the Los Angeles Times:

I was impressed with Jack Nelson's July 21 editorial on the subject of confidential sources within the White House. As he pointed out, the issue in Karl Rove's case is not so much the fact that he evidently participated in a leak, but rather the fact that he evidently participated in endangering the life of a CIA operative and the security of the United States, for purely political reasons.

My question, then, is, "Why does the press seek and accept leaks of confidential information from White House sources and then fail to use it well?"

The nomination of Judge Roberts to the Supreme Court is obviously newsworthy, but I find it deeply troubling that much of the national media seems to have dropped the story of Karl Rove's dangerous and possibly illegal dirty tricks in its rush to examine Judge Roberts' career. I am informed that news stories regarding Karl Rove and his antics have dropped by 90% this week, an outrageous development given the importance of the issues involved.

I urge America's reporters to keep the pressue on Mr. Rove and the White House, regardless of other breaking news, until we learn just how deep this madness goes.

Benshlomo says, You gotta give these people a kick in the ass occasionally.

Scotty Beams Up

James Doohan is dead. He's been sick for a long time, but that's one more part of our past that's gone.

Benshlomo says, wherever he's gone now, it will be no tribble at all.

I Dispute the Bible

The other day, while driving home from work, I tuned in to a pastor named Brian Broderson - I sometimes listen to Christian sermons on the radio just to keep abreast of what those folks are up to.

His text was 1 Timothy 1:4-10, and he picked particularly on Verse 4 ("Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith") and Verses 8-9 ("But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully, as knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and unruly...").

Pastor Broderson drew from these verses this message (and I'm paraphrasing viciously): The Apostle Paul, by "fables" (or "myths" according to his translation) meant not Greek stories of gods and heroes, but the endless rules and regulations that the religious authorities of the day made up, and which interfered with the relationship of the people to God. It was yet another attempt by those in authority to subordinate the people to themselves as arbiters of the law (or, as we call it, the Torah). The joke is that, as Paul says in Verse 9, the Law (or Torah) doesn't apply to those who have been saved at all. The Law is obviously given to restrain evil - once a person is saved there is no need for the Law, since in our great love of God we would not wish to do those evil deeds in the first place.

I beg to differ.

I am no expert on parsing the intent of the Apostle Paul, needless to say, and I am more aware than I care to be that evangelical Christianity has little or no respect for the Jewish sages of Jesus' time, but if anyone really thinks this is an accurate statement of what the Law is for according to its own dictates, that person has been seriously misled.

Taking the pastor's points in order:

There are, indeed, those who assert that we need nothing but the written scripture to lead a righteous life. There was a Jewish movement in Jesus' day who said that very thing, the Sadducees. And there's a reason those folks aren't around anymore - that kind of belief leads directly to complete assimilation. It's a question worth asking as to whether the Jewish authorities of the day may have overinterpreted scripture, but the idea that scripture needs no interpretation at all is just foolish. And yes, following all those laws that the pastor referred to as "myths" can be inconvenient at times, but I seriously doubt that the pastor really advocates a completely free and unregulated system of religious behavior. In short, when the Bible commands us not to steal, we can say that the form of our obedience to that commandment is a matter of personal interpretation - I think taking pencils home from work is stealing and you don't, for instance - but if we do that we're going to have one heck of a mess on our hands. (Never mind the fact that according to some Jewish thought, those "myths" the pastor referred to are based on the sacred Oral Law given by God to Moses on Mt. Sinai along with the written Torah that the pastor is familiar with - "fables," my foot.)

It's all very well to assert that a system of laws interferes with our personal spiritual life - I say that trying to live without such a system interferes a lot more, and I suspect that the pastor would agree if he thought about it. If we have no agreed-upon code of conduct, how are we supposed to form ourselves into congregations and communities? How are we supposed to "fellowship," as that rather odd verb puts it? How are we even supposed to live together if you hire me in your business and I think Biblical text allows me to take pencils home from work? There's got to be some kind of agreement, which means that someone has to take the lead in formulating that agreement, and you and I would probably like a group of wise and learned people to take that lead. Otherwise, if we all have to participate in formulating that agreement, we're never going to get anything else done.

The next point is another variant on the evangelical argument that the Law, or Torah, was given us by God to "convict" us. That is, although technically one could obtain salvation by obeying the Law, one would have to obey the whole thing perfectly all the time, and no one can do that, since we're all sinners by nature. Therefore, since God knew perfectly well that the Law could not save anyone, He gave it to us so that we would know just how corrupt and sinful we are.

There's a lot to say on the subject, but the basic point is that this assertion misrepresents the Law completely. The Law is not designed to save anyone from Hell - it doesn't even mention Hell. God does not expect anyone to obey the Law perfectly - that's why the Law provides a system of repentance when someone sins. The Law does not require that anyone obey all of it - that's a physical impossibility, since some of the laws apply to men only, some to women only, some to the king only, some to priests only, and so on. And it's worth asking what kind of a God comes across in the above assertion, who would come up with such a complicated system and order us to obey it completely and perfectly when He knew all the time that we could not do so, and then punish us for our failure.

And finally, the idea that the Law is only for the unrighteous strikes me as an incredibly dangerous one, especially the way the pastor presented it. First of all, I urge anyone who seriously believes that a born-again Christian has no desire to sin because of his or her great love of God to take a look at this and this. Here's an evidently born-again man with a deep desire to commit heinous sins, and he's only one of thousands of such people throughout history. (Yeah, some people would say "His actions prove he's not a real Christian" - pretty convenient, isn't it? I could say that some of the ancient Pharisees weren't "real Jews" - think the evangelical church would buy that?) Second of all, the idea that the law doesn't apply to a certain group of people smacks uncomfortably of the "Superman" notion that Hitler stole from Nietzsche - not that these Christians are Nazis, but when they talk like this I'd bet the farm that at least some people will join a church so that they can do what they please. Third of all, the Law, or Torah, is not designed simply to restrain evil, but to promote virtue and holiness, something that the most righteous among us continue to need and want. And fourth of all, the idea that the Law does not apply to the saved is directly contrary to the Christian doctrine that we are all sinners even after we are born again, that we are simply sinners whom Jesus has died for.

Now, of course, I have no problem disagreeing with Christian Biblical text like 1 Timothy, but if my take on these ideas makes sense, what on Earth is the pastor going to do?

Benshlomo says, Come let us reason together.

And Now a Word from the "Who's Kidding Who" Department

Now someone's claiming that Karl Rove learned about Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA undercover operative from Robert Novak, not the other way round.

In other words, Robert Novak somehow knew that Ms. Plame was a spy, and informed Karl Rove of that interesting fact in the middle of a friendly telephone chat.

Benshlomo says, Oh well, I spent too much time digesting my breakfast anyway.

Miserable Comforters

Last night I had a conversation with my mother about the Book of Job, which is not easy to understand even for professional Bible types. Her question was, "If Judaism doesn't believe in a Devil (which it doesn't), then who is this Satan that God talks to and gets into competition with?"

According to the great Jewish Biblical commentator Rashi, the Satan of Job is properly called the Adversary, an angel tasked by God to accuse the people before the Divine Court. What that means to me is that, in Job, when God says to the Satan "Have you considered my servant Job?", He is opening the door to an examination of Job's soul to its depths. So it's not so much a competition between God and Satan, it's more of a project of God's to see if Job is really as righteous as he seems.

This led to a conversation regarding the nature of God, and my mother's difficulties with belief in Him. Like many people before her, she asks, "How can we believe in a God who is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving and all-wise, and yet permits the kinds of horrors we read about in the paper every day? As with Job, why would a God of that description permit such suffering to be visited upon those who haven't done anything wrong, like all the children who died in the tsunami?"

The classical answer to that is: If the world were a safe place and the innocent never suffered, then we would have certain knowledge of God's supreme goodness. If we had such knowledge, evil would have no allure whatsoever - we would choose God all the time. If that were the case, then free will would be meaningless, a mere theoretical ability but one that was never exercised. And if free will were meaningless, then when we died and went to Heaven and received the incomprehensible reward that's waiting for us there, we would always know that we had received that reward through no effort of our own, and our pleasure would be the less. God has therefore created a world in which we seem, at least, to have a genuine choice between good and evil.

And that, presumably, is why we are confronted with scummy behavior like this from time to time. The question is not so much "Why does God permit evil?" but rather "What is my response to it going to be?"

Is this comforting or satisfactory? Not really. It makes sense to me, though, so I for one am willing to live with the discomfort. And, as Robert Heinlein of all people once said, sooner or later you will know, so why worry about it now?

Benshlomo says, May God sustain you when the world presses down so hard.

And Furthermore

Regarding my "flood" of yesterday:

Also fire the dimwit, asleep at the switch, responsible for this.

Benshlomo says, A dollar doesn't buy what it used to.

Here Comes the Flood

Fire Karl Rove, by all means.

Also, fire George W. Bush. Fire Dick Cheney. Fire Osama bin Laden. Fire Donald Trump. Fire Hurricane Dennis. Fire Don Rumsfeld.

Fire Instapundit. Fire Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, and Sean Hannity. Definitely fire Robert Novak.

Fire Rick Santorum, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Strom Thurmond (I know he's dead - fire him anyway).

Fire Tom Cruise. And while you're at it, fire L. Ron Hubbard.

Fire Abbas and Sharon and Assad and Mubarak and all those jackasses, and Kofi Annan too.

And fire whoever's running the National Hockey League and whoever's running the hockey players' union, and their equivalents in all other major sports. And fire the moron who cancelled Joan of Arcadia, not to mention Star Trek.

Fire anyone who likes Rabbi Meir Kahane or anyone who thinks like him on any side of any major issue.

Either fire Howard Dean or those members of his party who keep stabbing him in the back, I don't much care which.

Fire whoever gave the wrong blood to the father of my Little Miss, and fire whoever hired that person. And whoever's spreading nasty rumors about her now.

For God's sake fire this guy.

And if you think I ought to be using a different word beginning with "f", feel free to make the substitution.

Benshlomo says, I don't always know who to vote for, but I always know who to vote against.

Culture of Death

Today, four bombs went off in the London Underground and 33 people died. America has 9/11 and England now has 7/7. Some lucky number.

George W. Bush, in Scotland for the G8 summit conference, had this to say:

The contrast couldn't be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those of us who care deeply about human rights and human liberty and those who kill, those who have such evil in their heart that they will take the lives of innocent folks.

I'm not at all convinced, even now, that the President or his cronies "care deeply about human rights and human liberty" - his actions over the course of his administration suggest that he has very different priorities - but as much as I believe that he's done almost nothing right since he was "elected," he's right about this.

Western culture is based, among other things, on the belief that life is better than death. Terrorism, on the other hand, sees that belief as a weakness. That's why terrorists can convince themselves that their own lives are meaningless, and that those lives are best used to kill other people, particularly their enemies.

I have no idea whether the bombs in London's Underground were suicide bombs or not, but either way, those who planted them clearly assumed that the lives that would end were less important than whatever it is those people wanted to get. Shame on them.

Benshlomo says, Some things are more important than life, but death is not one of them.

The Red White and Blue Traitors

Karl Rove, the shmoo (come on, compare the pictures yourself), may have stepped over the line for the last time. Please God.

The greasy blob of blubber, if Time Magazine's records are accurate, revealed to conservative columnist Robert Novak the identity of a CIA undercover operative because her husband wrote a column contradicting, by his own eyewitness experience, the Bush administration's claim that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy bomb-quality uranium in Niger.

Now, boys and girls, let's go over this very carefully (not that every other blogger in space isn't doing the same thing).

The Bush administration, in a fever of patriotic fervor (and a partridge in a pear tree), says "We've got to go to war! Saddam Hussein is building nuclear bombs! He tried to buy uranium in Africa!".

Joe Wilson, a career diplomat and the man sent to Africa to confirm this assertion, says "No he didn't!".

Through Robert Novak, the Bush administration says "Oh yeah? Well, your wife is a CIA spy!"

Certain federal prosecutors say "Hey, wait a minute! Saying that in wartime is treason! Who gave you that information?"

Novak says, "Someone in the White House."

Time, Inc. says "We don't want our reporters to sit in jail, so here are some documents that will tell you who the White House source was."

And who was the traitorous fiend within the patriotic Bush administration who did all this? Three guesses, children.

That's a long story, so here's the short version: The Bush administration, and Karl Rove, claimed and still claims a monopoly on patriotism. To express their patriotism, their love of country and their dedication to democratic ideals, they lie about their reasons for taking the country they love into war. To protect the United States, the nation whose very existence makes them swell with pride and admiration, they reveal to the world the name of a member of the nation's intelligence-gathering group in the course of attacking a man who tried to stop them from making a serious mistake.

Do you detect a note of sarcasm? You bet you do. These maggots (including George W. Bush, who has his hand up the anus of every White House official) hid behind the flag while doing nothing more than protecting their own asses.

And not only do they have the nerve to call themselves Americans, they spit on anyone who disagrees with them. If this was what genuine Americanism really looked like, this nation would have disintegrated long ago.

The frightening part is that with these men in power, the country might disintegrate yet.

Benshlomo says, The more they wave the flag at me, the more I smell the crap.

229 Years Old

This is such an insanely good idea that I'm furious my teacher, Tony Pierce, though of it first. Now I don't get to write a letter to the Fourth of July because if I did I'd be totally guilty of plagiarism (maybe about the only thing that this administration is innocent of, but more on that later).

I'm going to have to come up with my own creative idea for celebrating the birth of my country. And it is my country, so Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly and James Watt and Sean Hannity and Karl Rove and Tom DeLay and all those other assorted brain-sprained human hemorrhoids can kiss my pimply Jewish ass.

Funny thing, though - as furious as I am at those people for trying to take my country away from me, I suddenly find myself remembering that it's their country, too.

There's a midrash, a commentary on Jewish law and history, regarding the Four Species that Jews make use of on the holiday of Sukkot, which takes place in late September or October. The four plants we use are a citron, a heart of palm, branches of myrtle and branches of willow. The citron, having both a nice smell and a good taste, is compared to the sort of Jew who has both Torah learning and good deeds. The palm (or its fruit, anyway) has a good taste but no scent, and is compared to a Jew who has Torah learning but no good deeds. The myrtle smells good but has no taste, and is compared to a Jew who has good deeds but no Torah learning. And the willow, having no taste and no scent, is compared to a Jew who has neither good deeds nor Torah learning. The point of this is that, just as we cannot follow the laws of Sukkot without all four plants, so too we can't have the Jewish people without all the different kinds of Jews, including the ones with nothing particular to recommend them.

When the United States was first formed and the Revolution was underway all those years ago, most of the people living here considered themselves Englishmen. A huge percentage of them did not support independence, and many of them actively worked to destroy the revolution outright.

I consider the current administration delusional and destructive, and I consider all those right-wing hatemongers to be vicious liars and maybe even traitors, but they are still Americans and today is their day as well as mine. If they were with me, I'd buy them a beer and watch the fireworks with them, assuming they'd accept a gift from me.

Tomorrow I'll go back to fighting against them with every word I write.

Benshlomo says, Happy Fourth of July, friends and foes.

Open Letter to the White House - So Much to Do

Dear Mr. President,

Ordinarily I wouldn't bother writing you a mere couple of days after my last letter, but it's been a busy week for you, hasn't it?

The first thing I happened to notice was your interview on Danish television in which you said that you could not, in "good conscience," sign the Kyoto Protocols for repairing environmental damage in the world because it would have "wrecked the U.S. economy," and would not have worked without the participation of other industrial nations like China and India. Taking these points in turn, allow me to correct a number of errors. Firstly, according to your avowed Christian belief, we are to know you by the fruits of your labors, and by that evidence you have no conscience. I won't bother with too much of a laundry list, but by your actions you have no concern for American workers, for international law or peace, for a successful conclusion to the war on terror or the war on Iraq, for the environmental survival of the world, or for much beyond your personal power and the wealth of your corporate friends and allies. Secondly, you have no standing to claim any concern over the economy being wrecked, since our current woes in economic stability are a direct result of your policies since 2000 - the Protocols could never have produced a worse result in a million years. Third, I must point out the logical and moral fallacy in assuming that, because the Protocols might not have worked without the participation of other nations, it was therefore acceptable for us to continue polluting ourselves - in other words, you seem to be saying "This plan might not solve the whole problem, so let's not do anything at all," as blatant a piece of nonsense as has ever emerged from your administration (which is saying something). Fourthly, I find it highly amusing that you seemed perfectly willing to jump into a foolish and bloody war without international participation, but you now announce that you are unwilling to jump into a plan to clean up the planet without such participation - it's clearly the lamest of excuses, but it does show where your priorities lie. And lastly, I can't imagine what delusion led you to talk of signing the Protocols as if you came into office before America had committed to them, unless you seriously believe that the previous administration had not already agreed to participate. That's six separate and distinct lies or illogical constructions in one sentence, sir, which has to be some kind of record - has anyone in your administration called Guinness yet?

Moving right along, your proposals for African aid as usual sound extremely well taken by themselves. Taken in the context of what's actually going on in Africa and in other nations regarding her plight, however, your proposals seem to have come from Alice's Wonderland. While others propose sweeping reforms that might help the continent get out from under crippling debt and the phenomenal spread of AIDS, you suggest a billion dollars - the equivalent of a week's worth of Iraqi war - to fight malaria. A very salutary goal, to be sure. If Congress provides that funding, along with your proposed $400 million to promote the education of girls, $55 million to protect women against violence, and $674 million in emergency famine relief, that makes something like $2.2 billion for famine, one disease, and two women's issues. While Prime Minister Blair proposes something comprehensive to pull Africa out of the morass, you, the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth, pick and choose what it suits you to address and return to playing soldier. Then you stand up and tell us all that aid to Africa has tripled during the course of your presidency, concealing the fact that you began your term by cutting that aid. I'd admire your audacity if it weren't that people will die because of it.

And now Justice O'Connor has announced her retirement, and the first thing you do is call for a "dignified" process to replace her. This from a man who got himself dressed up in a flight suit to say "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq when there were still at least twelve years of bloodshed to go according to his own Secretary of War. This from a man who designed an education program called "No Child Left Behind" that left thousands of children struggling to learn as they got passed along so their schools could hang on to a little federal money. This from a man who designed a forestry program called "Healthy Forest" that allowed industry to cut down healthy trees without any oversight at all. This from a man who eagerly pumped his arm in excitement when a war began. This from a man who appointed judges to recess appointments who had been turned down by the Congress instead of finding compromise candidates and looks likely to do the same thing with an unqualified and possibly deranged candidate for United Nations Ambassador. This from a man who let his chief political advisor ridicule half the country and label them as traitors, and applauded him to boot. This from a man who came to power claiming to be a "uniter," and has done nothing but tear the country apart ever since. Sir, you have no more idea of "dignity" than any four-year-old caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Less, in fact - at least that four-year-old honestly goes after what he wants, while you resort to the most underhanded tactics as a matter of course.

All of this despicable conduct is, unfortunately, as legal as extramarital sex, but then again, extramarital sex is evidently an impeachable offense in this day and age. As for your conduct, combined with the laws you and your administration have broken in the matter of the Iraqi war, the distribution of power to unelected corporate executives, the violation of intelligence cover, and who knows what else - with all of this in operation, sir, it is high time for you to resign. That's about the only thing I can think of that would restore to you any of the "dignity" you claim to want. I will wait and see how much it really means to you.