Multicultural Mumbo Jumbo

For the last few months I’ve been enjoying a new CD that we got for the children. (There is so much quality children’s music out there that I don’t understand why anyone puts up with Barney!) It’s a CD of culturally distinctive music from around the world: World Playground: A Musical Adventure For Kids. One of the songs is Israeli, in Hebrew, about the recent exodus of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. It’s a great song, very appropriate for the collection, by Shlomo Gronich.

Shlomo Gronich is a popular Israeli musician. He is distinctive in creating musically high-quality, yet popular songs. I would guess that he is classically trained. Around ten or fifteen years ago he started a children’s choir composed of recent immigrants from Ethiopia. Much of the material that he wrote for them reflected their experiences. The most well known piece is the one that appears in this collection. Though it is written in Hebrew, it sounds Ethiopian (so I understand – it certainly doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard before) and it’s become a kind of anthem for Ethiopian-Israelis. Called: Zikhronot me’afrika (Memories from Africa), its subject is the journey from Ethiopia to Israel.

Believe it or not, until about thirty years ago, so little was known about the Ethiopian Jewish community that their very existence was doubted. The rulers of Ethiopia both persecuted the Jews, and forbade them to leave. (Why this repeated pattern? I don’t know. It seems to go back to ancient Egypt.) Excerpt:

During the reign of Haile Selassie (1930-1974) the Jews of Ethiopia were treated with indifference but their inability to own land was coupled with the scorn of their neighbors who attributed to them every misfortune which befell them. In the struggles following the deposition of Haile Saleassie, an estimated 2,500 Jews were killed and 7,000 rendered homeless. From the end of 1977, small groups of Jews began to flee, joining refugee villages on the other side of the Sudanese border. Those caught trying to flee Ethiopia were arrested and tortured.

Claiming that Hebrew was being taught in preparation for emigration to Israel, the governor of Gondar confiscated Hebrew books, the practice of religion was forbidden, Jewish schools and synagogues closed and students caught talking to tourists were questioned and imprisoned. Travel was restricted and a Jew without a travel pass was assumed to be trying to escape and liable for imprisonment. But, the exodus continued. Within three years, there were hundreds of Jews in Sudan living in terrible conditions.

Pressure from world Jewry increased, the government of Israel pledged itself to save the Jews of Ethiopia and the Jewish Agency shifted its policy from quiet diplomacy to call for a worldwide campaign to publicize their plight.

In secret operations beginning in 1980, Israeli operatives were able to smuggle hundreds of Ethiopian Jews through Kenya to Israel. By the end of 1982 there were 2,500 Ethiopian Jews living in Israel and throughout 1983, 1,800 left Sudan over land. Recognizing the need to move more quickly, the Israelis began to use a nearby air strip to land Hercules transport planes which could each bring out 200 immigrants per flight. Utilizing a variety of routes, a total of 8,000 Jews had reached Israel by late 1984.

However, it was clear that the large numbers of Jews crossing into Sudan exacerbated the already horrific conditions in the camps. On November 21, Operation Moses began. Refugees were bused out of the refugee camps to a military airport near Khartoum where they were flown directly to Israel under a blanket of complete secrecy.

When news leaks ended the operation in January 1985, 8,000 Jews had been brought to Israel, leaving behind about 1,000 Jews in Sudan and thousands more in Ethiopia. Initiated by Vice President Bush, a CIA sponsored follow-up mission called Operation Joshua brought an additional 800 Jews from Sudan to Israel.

Operation Moses separated many from their loved ones and more than 1,600 "orphans of circumstances" separated from their families began new lives in Jewish Agency Youth Aliyah villages, learning Hebrew and becoming acculturated not knowing the fate of their parents, brothers, sisters and loved ones. Others took the first difficult steps in Agency absorption centers where they learned to live in a modern society.

I remember when the news broke of this exodus. It seemed incredible. Israelis of all kinds were awed and curious. It was then that I learned the difference between racism and prejudice. Israelis had all kinds of prejudices about Ethiopians, mostly based on fact. There were all kinds of stories about Ethiopian reactions to modern life, not all of them plausible. But the bottom line was that Israelis loved the Ethiopians. They have a much better reputation than the Russians, for instance. For example, everyone remarked on their good nature, and most Israelis think they’re very beautiful (including me).

The journey to Israel was long and hard, and many people died on the way, walking from Ethiopia to Sudan, from where they were flown to Israel. Gronich’s song tells of it. A few days ago, I idly picked up the workbook that accompanies the CD. At the back are transcriptions and translations of all the songs. Naturally, I turned to Zikhronot me’afrika. The first thing I noticed was that the translation was much shorter than the transcription. This was odd. In a text of any length, a translation of Hebrew into English is almost invariably longer than its transliteration (you may have noticed this on my site). On closer look, I realized that a lot of the text was left out, and what was translated was quite distorted. Why? See for yourself, the following is the original text with my transcription and translation, followed by the translation that appears in the book:

נכנסנו לציפור גדולה עם כנפיים מברזל 
אמא קצת בכתה ואבא רוב הזמן שתק 
אחר כך הוא אמר לי: בן, החוצה תסתכל 
עכשיו שמיים עננים, בסוף זה ארץ ישראל

בספר הספרים כתוב שהיא טובה 
חלב אפשר לשתות שם מתוך האדמה 
אברהם אבינו עשה בה את הברית 
ומקומנו שם, אלוהים על זה החליט

נכנסנו לציפור גדולה עם כנפיים מברזל 
אמא קצת בכתה ואבא רוב הזמן שתק
הוא ידע שכל מה שהיה הולך להשתנות 
שלום לך אפריקה, הכל ביום אחד נמחק 

היום הוא מחפש פה את יצחק אבינו 
מדבר קצת לפעמים על הארץ בה היינו 
מזכיר שלא היה שם טוב,את זה אני יודע 
אך בעיניו אני רואה: הוא קצת מתגעגע

נכנסנו לציפור גדולה עם כנפיים מברזל 
אמא קצת בכתה ואבא רוב הזמן שתק 
הדלת נסגרה על כל מה שהיה
זכרונות מאפריקה, של רעב ושל אבק 

Nikhnasnu l’sipur g’dola `im k’nafayim mibarzel
Ima q’sat bakhta v’aba rov hazman shataq
Ahar kakh hu amar li: ben, hahusa tistakel
`Akhshav shamayim `ananim, b’sof ze eres yisra’el

B’sefer hasfarim katuv shehi tova
Halav efshar lishtot sham mitokh ha’adama
Avraham avinu `asa ba’ et habrit
Umqomenu sham, elohim `al ze hihlit

Nikhnasnu l’sipur g’dola `im k’nafayim mibarzel
Ima q’sat bakhta v’aba rov hazman shataq
Hu yada` shekol ma shehaya holekh l’hishtanot
Shalom lakh afrika, hakol b’yom ehad nimhaq

Hayom hu m’hapes po et yishaq avinu
M’daber q’sat lif`amim `al ha’ares ba hayinu
Mazkir shelo’ haya sham tov, et ze ani yodea`
Akh b`eynav ani ro’e: hu q’sat mitga`agea`

Nikhnasnu l’sipur g’dola `im k’nafayim mibarzel
Ima q’sat bakhta v’aba rov hazman shataq
Hadelet nisg’ra `al ma shehaya
Zikhronot me’afrika, shel ra`av v’shel avaq

 

We went into a big bird with wings of iron
Mother cried a little, and father most of the time was quiet
Afterwards he said to me: son, look outside
Now it’s sky and clouds, in the end it’s the land of Israel

In the book of books it is written that it is good
Milk it is possible to drink there from out of the ground
Abraham our father made there the covenant
And our place is there, God has decided about it

We went into a big bird with wings of iron
Mother cried a little, and father most of the time was quiet
He knew that all that was is going to change
Goodbye to you, Africa, everything in one day is erased

Today he is looking here for Isaac our father
He talks a little sometimes about the land in which we were
Reminds us that it wasn’t good there, that I know
But in his eyes I see: he longs for it a little bit

We went into a big bird with wings of iron
Mother cried a little, and father most of the time was quiet
The door is closed on what was
Memories from Africa, of hunger and of dust

The following is their translation:

We stepped into a great big bird
With enormous iron wings
Mama softly cried, and papa never said a thing
Then once he turned to me and said
“Son, take a look around
Although the sky is full of clouds
You’ll soon see Israel on the ground.”

The Bible says the land is very good and sweet
If flows with milk and honey
From every mountain peak

Sometimes, he speaks to me
Of the land we used to live in
Reminding me of hardships there
Of dust and drought he tells
But how he’s longing in his eyes
I can see very well

Not only does this translation simply leave out a lot, it changes the sense of what it leaves. What is left out? All mentions of the historical connection between the land of Israel and the Jews, and the sense of homecoming with which the song is infused. And what remains? A longing for Africa, when the emphasis of the song is that despite some longing, what was left behind was hardship.

Finally, the CD fades out during the last paragraph, so that you can’t hear the last two lines at all! And it doesn’t bother to transcribe or translate it. Here it is:

אז לא ידעת אבא, למה יש לצפות 
ושעל אדמת הקודש נוסעים במכוניות 
הדברים טיפה אחרת, פה בארץ האבות 
ובני עמנו השתנו, מאז עשרת הדברות 

Az lo’ yada`ta aba, l’ma yesh lisapot
V’she`al admat haqodesh nos`im bimkhoniyot 
Hadvarim tipa aheret, po b’eres ha’avot
Ub’ney `amenu hishtanu, me’az `aseret hadibrot

Then you didn’t know father, what there was to expect
And that on the holy land they ride in cars
The things are a little different, here in the land of the forefathers
And the children of our people have changed, from the time of the Ten Commandments

UPDATE: Amritas links and says: “At least David Boxenhorn was able to properly translate the song on his own.” Actually, on re-reading this post I see that my translation was exceptionally stilted, mostly as a result of closely following the Hebrew word order. I would certainly have accepted a translation that favors poetry over accuracy little more than mine. Making an accurate translation is hard enough, making it sound good too is even harder! I think you can see, though, that the World Playground’s translation isn’t attempting quality in either sense.

Four-letter roots

Amritas has a very interesting post on onomatopoeic and emotive words in Japanese and Korean. It inspires me to write about the subject too! My general impression is that Hebrew has a huge number of verbs that sound like their action. If you have been reading this blog for any length of time you have frequently heard about Hebrew three-letter roots. However, Hebrew also has a large number of four-letter roots. These roots have limited productivity: out of seven verbal paradigms, only two can accommodate four-letter roots, and out of several hundred (my guess) patterns, only a handful can accommodate them. Luckily, the two verbal patterns, pi`el and hitpa`el, are for transitive and intransitive verbs respectively, so any action can potentially be expressed by a four-letter root. (Hebrew verbs never do double-time as both transitive and intransitive verbs, e.g. walking to school and walking the dog are two different words: halakh and holikh respectively. The only exceptions are the words for the five senses, which mostly work like English: Your dog has no nose, how does he smell? – Awful!)

There are three sources of four-letter roots. First, there are imported words, e.g. irgen (ארגן – organize. You may be familiar with this root from the Irgun – the Organization, short for Irgun Sva’i L’umi – National Military Organization). There is also a native mechanism for extending three letter roots by adding an extra root letter, usually adding a ’, m, sh, or t as the first letter of the root, or doubling the last letter. Compare: pisher – compromise, ifsher – enable; safar – count, misper – number; `avad – work, shi`abed – enslave; hazar – return, shihzer – recreate; dalaq – burn, tadleq – fuel (e.g. a car); sarat – scratch, sirtet – draw (a picture).

Finally, there’s the source I really want to get to: roots of the form XYXY. There must be hundreds of roots of this form; very frequently they are onomatopoeic. Here are a few: milmel – murmur, rishresh – rustle, sifsef – chirp, gilgel – roll, silsel – curl, zimzem – buzz, tishtesh – make blurry, tiqteq – tick, type, tiftef – drip.

I have given just the pi`el verbs that are formed from these roots (notice that they all have the pattern XiYXeY), but most have hitpa`el (hitXaYXeY) forms as well, e.g. hitgalgel – roll, intransitive. You can also make nouns, most often with the pattern XaYXaY, e.g. galgal – wheel, zamzam – buzzer.

UPDATE: Amritas also notices the similarity between the opening of the mouth to make the p sound, and the meaning of the Japanese word paku – open. The Hebrew word also begins with this letter: patah – open.

Rishon Rishon endorses George Bush

I suppose I don’t have to tell you, but I support George Bush for president of the United States of America. I have a lot of reasons, but if I had to sum it up it would be thus: John Kerry is a liar and George Bush is a man of conviction.

When I call Kerry a liar, I am not referring to the numerous lies he told about his service in Vietnam, nor the numerous lesser lies he has told during the campaign, I am referring to the Big Lie: He is not who he claims to be. He is selling himself as a more nuanced, intelligent version of Bush. He is neither nuanced, more intelligent, nor a version of Bush.

On the other hand, where Kerry has rhetorical tricks, Bush has conviction. What you see is what you get. If you like it, vote for him. For the most part, certainly more than any presidential candidate since Ronald Regan, I like it.

If you want my view with more details, wit, and eloquence, visit David Warren: one, two, three, four.

Hobbits discovered in Indonesia

This has to be the most incredible news I’ve seen in a long time:

Skeletons of these miniature people have been excavated from a limestone cave on Flores, an island 370 miles east of Bali, by a team of Australian and Indonesian archaeologists. Reporting their find in today's issue of Nature, they assign the people to a new human species, Homo floresiensis.

The new finding is "among the most outstanding discoveries in paleoanthropology for half a century," say two anthropologists not associated with the study, Dr. Marta Mirazon Lahr and Dr. Robert Foley of the University of Cambridge, in a written commentary in the same issue.

The little Floresians lived on the island until at least 13,000 years ago, and possibly to historic times. But they were not a pygmy form of modern humans. They were a downsized version of Homo erectus, the eastern cousin of the Neanderthals of Europe, who disappeared 33,000 years ago. Their discovery means that archaic humans, who left Africa 1.5 million years earlier than modern people, survived far longer into recent times than was previously supposed.

For more, see Gene Expression and Amritas, also here.

According to local legend, they survived until modern times:

One of the village elders told us that the Ebu Gogo ate everything raw, including vegetables, fruits, meat and, if they got the chance, even human meat.

When food was served to them they also ate the plates, made of pumpkin - the original guests from hell (or heaven, if you don't like washing up and don't mind replacing your dinner set every week).

The villagers say that the Ebu Gogo raided their crops, which they tolerated, but decided to chase them away when the Ebu Gogo stole - and ate - one of their babies.

They ran away with the baby to their cave which was at the foot of the local volcano, some tens of metres up a cliff face. The villagers offered them bales of dry grass as fodder, which they gratefully accepted.

A few days later, the villagers went back with a burning bale of grass which they tossed into the cave. Out ran the Ebu Gogo, singed but not fried, and were last seen heading west, in the direction of Liang Bua, where we found the Hobbit, as it happens.

The anatomical details in the legends are equally fascinating. They are described as about a metre tall, with long hair, pot bellies, ears that slightly stick out, a slightly awkward gait, and longish arms and fingers - both confirmed by our further finds this year.

They [the Ebu Gogo] murmured at each other and could repeat words [spoken by villagers] verbatim. For example, to 'here's some food', they would reply 'here's some food'. They could climb slender-girthed trees but, here's the rub, were never seen holding stone tools or anything similar, whereas we have lots of sophisticated artefacts in the H. floresiensis levels at Liang Bua. That's the only inconsistency with the Liang Bua evidence.

Assuming the reporting is accurate, I find this story very convincing. It doesn’t sound to me at all like tales of elves and leprechauns – there is no magic, no special powers, and it’s full of unusual details consistent with what we know about the subject. In particular, I find the account of their language haunting. It reminds me of the behavior of children who are acquiring language, rather than the “little people” of legends. Even the supposed inconsistency can be explained by technology loss due to reduced population.

“Everyone is planning to build nuclear weapons”

Spengler says (via Sarah):

Whether or not Saddam Hussein actually intended or had the capacity to build nuclear weapons is of trifling weight in the strategic balance. Everyone is planning to build nuclear weapons. They involve 60-year-old technology no longer difficult to replicate. It hardly matters where one begins. "Kill the chicken, and let the monkey watch," as the Chinese say. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, the theocrats of Iran, the North Koreans and soon many other incalculable reprobates have or will have such plans. It hardly matters which one you attack first, so long as you attack one of them.

Where are the anti-nuclear crowd when you need them?

Anti-Religions

One way to understand things is to look at their opposites. Opposites are things that are alike in every way except the most essential one. The opposite of black is not up, but white. The opposite of up is not smooth, but down. Thus, the opposite of Christianity is Devil-worship. In order for Devil-worship to make sense, you have to except Christian cosmology before you choose to go to the other side. It is literally unthinkable in a Jewish context, for instance: no one would think of it because Judaism doesn’t posit a Devil in the Christian sense, as something that could, at least theoretically, be worshipped. The opposite of Judaism would be doing anti-misvot. (Jews are supposed to do 613 misvot – commandments, non-Jews, seven misvot.) This, in fact, was commonly practiced in certain quarters: eating pork on Yom Kipur, for example. Though you may (or may not) think it reprehensible, it is also, no doubt, Jewish.

So, if:

Anti-Christianity is Devil worship.
Anti-Judaism is doing anti-misvot.

What is:

Anti-Islam?
Anti-Buddhism?
Anti-Hinduism?
Anti-Shintoism?
Anti-Sikhism?
Anti-Mormonism?

The fact that I don’t know the answer to these questions shows me that I knew less than I thought I did.

Quantum Leap of Faith

In the beginning there was free will. Why? Well, it was obvious that people thought for themselves, though they be constrained by circumstances, fate, and outrageous fortune. Likewise, it was obvious that God ruled the Earth. And if not God, then gods, spirits, leprechauns, etc. How else could we order the randomness of the world? Causality is fundamental to making sense of anything, and we humans cannot but believe in it.

Isaac Newton was the great dragonslayer of this point of view; with James Clerk Maxwell administering the final thrust though the heart. Gone were the capricious anthropomorphized forces of nature – they had no place in the cold new world. The new forces of nature were soulless equations, utterly predictable. And the new world proceeded like clockwork: all was determined by its initial state. It is perhaps not surprising that at this point in history we see the popular emergence of Deism: the belief that God created the universe, and stepped back, no longer intervening in day-to-day life. This is the Newtonian God.

Within Judaism, however, a related debate had been going on for millennia about the nature of miracles: Whether God performed miracles through nature (בדרך הטבע – b’derekh hateva` – by way of nature) i.e. without breaking the laws of nature, or whether miracles were examples of God suspending the laws of nature to do His will. (Incidentally, even that most paradigmatic miracle, the parting of the Red Sea, is presented in the Bible as having a natural cause: a strong east wind. This is the hot, dry wind familiar around the Mediterranean as distinct from the relatively cool, moist, west wind. During a transition it can be extremely windy. Seen in this light, the parting of the Red Sea is no more, or less, miraculous than the destruction of the Spanish Armada.) This is reflected in the following quote from the Mishna (the oldest part of the Talmud):

עשרה דברים נבראו בערב שבת בין השמשות
פי הארץ פי הבאר פי האתון והקשת והמן
והמטה והשמיר והכתב והמכתב והלוחות
ויש אומרין אף המזיקין וקבורתו של משה ואילו של אברהם
ויש אומרין אף צבת בצבת עשויה

`asara d’varim nivr’u b`erev shabat beyn hashmashot
pi ha’aras pi hab’er pi ha’aton v’haqeshet v’haman
v’hamate v’hashamir v’hak’tav v’hamikhtav v’haluhot
v’yesh omrin af hamaziqin uq’vurato shel moshe v’eylo shel avraham
v’yesh omrin af svat b’svat `asuya

Ten things were created on the evening of Shabat as the sun set
The mouth of the earth, the mouth of the well, the mouth of the donkey, and the rainbow and the manna
And the staff, and the worm that cuts rock, and the writing, and the letter, and the tablets
And some say even the disembodied spirits, and the grave of Moses, and the ram of Abraham
And some say even the even the tongs with which tongs are made

Pirqey Avot 5:6

This is a list of various seemingly miraculous things, the implication being that they are not violations of laws of nature because they were created together with the creation of the universe, i.e. they have the same status as laws of nature. I like the image of a kind of appendix to the story of creation. After the universe was created with a broad brush: rules to be applied generally, that some miscellaneous exceptions were tacked on to the end as the sun set on the last day of creation. I particularly like the last line, which alludes to the fact that you need tongs to make tongs (to hold them in the fire) so how were the first tongs made? The dynamism and chaos that characterizes the universe – a result of the infinite recursion in which we exist, is itself a miracle that must be explained.

Then came Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and quantum mechanics. They demonstrated that the universe wasn’t deterministic at all! Einstein, whose mind-bending theories destroyed our notions of time and space, thought it an insult to God: “God does not play dice with the universe!” he declared. But, according to experimentation, it seems that God does. Or does He? Perhaps it is not dice, but free will after all?

What happened to us?

Nelson Ascher is promising us a series in which will show the seriousness of the crisis we now face. The problem is not just the Islamists: it’s us. Nelson points out:

When the first Gulf War was fought, there was no lack of people who opposed it. But that opposition didn’t become a worldwide hysteria. So, let us forget 9/11 for a moment: what was so unexpected or scandalous about invading Iraq and deposing Saddam? Left-wingers would have complained and protested, but saving Saddam’s head wouldn’t have turned into a mainstream obsession. Who, except fringe lunatics, would have taken to the streets to save Saddam? I mean: there was no worldwide hysteria when the US intervened in Somalia. Most people couldn’t care less. Were American troops to go openly into Mogadishu again, there’d be a veritable earthquake now resembling the one that preceded the invasion of Iraq. So, in a way, the international reaction to this invasion is what was really amazing, though in a post-9/11 world that seemed quite natural.

My intention is to weave these threads together in order to try and grasp the whole. I’m not sure I’ll manage to do it, but I’ll do my best. Doing this maybe I’ll be able to show rationally, point by point, that the crisis we’re going through is serious, huge indeed.

My contribution: In the west religion gave way to secular modernism which gave way to nihilism. And that has made us unfit to fight Islamism. In the east religion gave way to fascism which gave way to Islamism. The experience of the modern world has been different, but in each case it led to dismay and rejection – interestingly, for different reasons: in the west it didn’t deliver happiness, while in the east it didn’t deliver prosperity.

Dads and Cads

The question of why people are attracted to spouses who are bad for them is one that I’ve wondered about for a long time. It was made obvious to me at a fairly young age that girls were attracted to the “bad boys,” and I wasn’t one of them. Somehow, even armed with this knowledge, I was unable, or unwilling, to adjust.

But to this picture was added a more puzzling data point: a friend of a friend telling me about her friend who was in an abusive relationship with an alcoholic. The truly weird thing about it, to me at the time, was that her father was also an alcoholic. You would think that of all people, she would be most wary of getting into such a relationship, as they say: once bitten, twice shy.

In the years since then, I’ve come to understand the psychological mechanisms at work. I tried to describe it allegorically a while back. Put more bluntly: we try to recreate with our spouse the relationship that we had with our parents, in order to relive it, and hopefully fix it. By fixing our relationship with our spouse, we fix our relationship with our parents, and thus our whole life. Clearly, however, this is problematic when the child/parent relationship is dysfunctional to an extreme.

That is the psychological explanation, and it works. But what is the evolutionary explanation? For a characteristic to persist, it must contribute, somehow, to fitness. Razib, at Gene Expression implicitly asks this question. After thinking about it a little, I came up with the following: It helps to preserve culture. It drives human beings to marry people like their parents.

ZAKA

ZAKA is on a long list of things I consider blogging about from time to time, but haven’t. Joe Katzman at Winds Of Change has blogged about them. I’ll take it as a sign that I should too.

According to Jewish law, all things that have been used for a holy purpose must be treated with respect, and what could have a holier purpose than the human body? In practical terms, this means that people must be buried when they die. Cremation is not allowed, because that is a willful destruction of the body. (Incidentally, preserving or entombing the body is also not allowed, a body must be buried in contact with the earth, so it can decompose naturally.) This injunction applies to body parts as well – they cannot be thrown in the garbage, no matter how small.

ZAKA (זק"א – Zihuy Qorbanot Ason – Identification of Victims of Disaster) is an all-volunteer, non-governmental, non-profit organization that receives no governmental support whatsoever. Its mission is to go to points of disaster (not necessarily as a result of terror) to collect body parts and make sure that they are treated with respect. In post-terror-attack pictures you often see them collecting bits of skin with tweezers from the streets and surrounding buildings.

Shortly after beginning operations, ZAKA discovered that they were often the first to arrive at the scene of a disaster. I don’t want to disparage Magen David Adom (Red Star of David – the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross), they are wonderful people doing an important job, and doing the best they can, but still they are a pseudo-governmental organization, with all the bureaucracy that implies. The ZAKA volunteers, on the other hand, arrive in their own vehicles: the central organization merely locates the closest volunteers to the site of the disaster, and tells them to go.

So ZAKA started giving its volunteers first-aid training, and they have become the shock troops of Israeli first aid.

Joe points to this page, which talks about ZAKA. Among other things it points out that burying the dead is referred to as hesed shel emet – true kindness (literally: kindness of truth). The reason for that: for any other act of kindness one might think that there might be some kind of reward, but the dead cannot repay their debts.

Bears and Wolves

The Daily Recycler posts about Bush’s latest ad (via Instapundit), comparing it to Reagan’s famous bear ad. I can’t get his links to work in my browser, so for those of you like me, here they are:

Bush’s wolf ad
Reagan’s bear ad

Personally, I like Reagan’s bear ad better, for one reason: humor.

But Bush’s wolf add is good.

A Parallel Universe

Every week, every traditional Jew goes to a parallel universe. It is a universe without cars, without electrical appliances, where people live in small communities, where everyone knows each other, and where children of all ages play together in the company of their parents. It is called Shabat: the Sabbath.

Usually, when you hear about the Shabat, you hear about the things that are forbidden: turning lights on and off, cooking, shopping, driving the car. It seems like a great sacrifice, a weekly abstinence, and from time to time it is. What you don’t hear about is the atmosphere that it creates.

I wasn’t in the US last year for the great North-East blackout, but I read a lot of accounts describing the joyfulness which ensued: people meeting their neighbors, sitting on the steps eating ice cream, enjoying simple pleasures. I experienced something similar, though, during Boston’s blizzard of ’78, which shut the city down for a week. This is how I remember it too:

The lack of electricity, the ban on driving, the snow-muffled landscape, the sight of people pulling sleds in the middle of streets, the fact that everyone was home — all of it combined to give a sense we were living in an older, more relaxed time.

“I loved the way my house looked at night. There were candles that bathed my home in a soft glow and created dancing shadows on the walls,” Mary Urbanek of North Dartmouth wrote.

“I felt like a pioneer girl. With the absence of television and radio, my family and I were forced to rely on the old-fashioned way of entertainment. We played games, read stories and told jokes,” she remembered.

There were those who behaved poorly in the chaos of the blizzard’s immediate aftermath, stealing cars or the valuables inside. But most folks recall those days as a time of community, of neighbors helping each other, of clear evidence that people were essentially good.

Harold Crapo, long-time National Weather Service watcher, wrote in a note to The Standard-Times, “As I sit now and reflect upon this storm, what I remember most is how the community came together and helped one another.”

Carlton “Cukie” Macomber of Westport didn’t get far on his ride home from work in southern Rhode Island. Taking refuge first in a convenience store and then in a church, he found food, conversation and community. He didn’t get home for three days, but the experience told him, “This country has a lot of nice people in it.”

This is the world of Shabat. Every week, every observant Jew is transported to this world. Not driving, or using any other kind of transportation, every observant Jew (who does not want to be totally isolated) must live within walking distance of a synagogue, creating a community of walkers. Even the largest cities are reduced to small towns where everyone knows each other: virtual villages, invisible to the outside world.

It is a wonderful way to live. It squares the circle of the lonely city, the isolation of the individual endemic to modern life. It is a great way to raise children. It is said: more than the Jews have kept Shabat; Shabat, has kept the Jews.

Trackback from Willow Tree, When You've Nothing to Say:

Point to those who do. David of Rishon Rishon talks about one of my favorite days of the week. This is a great place to go to learn about the facts of Judaism. Brain Fertilizer's Nathan has links to an...

Snobbery makes you stupid

John Ray has given me another eureka moment (the last one was here). Not long ago I wrote a post, wondering how it was that so many smart people in academia could so consistently be so wrong. My personal experience leads me to believe that academics on the whole really are smarter than average, and that they really do have far more than the average number of stupid notions. I hypothesized a culture of poverty to account for it, and attempted to define some of its characteristics. However, while I think that what I wrote is true, it didn’t satisfy me. I didn’t get that eureka feeling that what I said really accounted for what I saw. John responded to that post by saying:

I think there is only one main reason: Arrogance. They have to be pretty bright to get to be professors so they then think they know it all. And it offends their ego to realize that they have nothing to say on the big issues other than what plain folk have been saying for years. So most of what they say is just a pathetic attempt to be clever.

While I don’t disagree with this, it also didn’t give me that eureka feeling. I just didn’t feel that he explained what I saw. But now he has:

Ian McFadyen has an excellent analysis of what the calls the "Snerds" or "sneering classes" -- educated Leftists who dominate the media and cultural institutions. Some excerpts: "It is not a snobbery based on wealth or aristocratic origins. It is the snobbery of people, usually from modest backgrounds who have created sense of class superiority for themselves on the basis of possessing the right attitudes rather than property or wealth. It is a snobbery based on being "well informed", of being "concerned" and "having a sense of social morality."... What makes this class of people snobbish rather than simply pretentious is their tendency to sneer. It is a tone which implies that certain thing in life are so axiomatic that no discussion of them is necessary or even possible...

What is difficult about conversing with a Snerd is the degree to which their attitudes are locked down.... Any such challenge to the basic tenets of their beliefs will simply be sneeringly discarded and the questioner relegated to one of the baskets of ratbag, fascist, racist, right wing reactionary, capitalist, Philistine or ill-informed... The inflexibility of the Snerd arises from a personal arrogance that he or she is a well-educated, well-informed and intelligent person who has "worked all this out" and come to - what they believe to be - the only possible solution. Snerds are characteristically blind to the fact that their belief systems are based, not on an independent intellectual of the issues, but on attitudes received from a very narrow range of sources, and shaped by the prejudices of a sub-culture.....

When they express opinions on a matter they do so more to define the boundaries of their own class than to actually change anything in the community..... Thus, while Snerds are quick to opinionate in areas which they feel will enhance their image as culturally superior - politics, law, the arts, they have no opinions at all on, and are careful not to get involved with, matters which they consider down-market like agriculture. Primary production, manufacturing and manual labour simply do not exist in the Snerd universe.

I have always disliked fashion-consciousness. I was quite a young child when I was first exposed to it: the notion that dressing a certain way, talking a certain way, liking a certain kind of music, etc. made you a superior person. Even at a young age, there seemed to be a certain class of children who were born to it, were exquisitely sensitive to just what it was that one had to do to achieve superiority. The most amazing thing about it: their superiority seemed to be universally recognized by their classmates (not excluding, I am ashamed to say, me). They were the aristocracy. Needless to say, I was not one of them.

I think that many of these children went on to become the academic elite, but whether or not it was the same people; the phenomenon is essentially the same. To be a member of the self-described “cognitive elite” you must conform rigidly to intellectual fashion. It is the ability to conform to it that identifies you as a member of this aristocracy. It also destroys your ability to think. That, is why so many academics are so stupid: they are snobs – a kind of fanatic. Snobbery makes you stupid.

UPDATE: It’s characteristic of eureka moments that they lead to more eureka moments, in a chain reaction. Quite a few things have fallen into place for me, for example: Considering the success of the child Snobbists, it is clear to me that they are exploiting some kind of psychological glitch common to all (or most) human beings. I have to think some more about the exact nature of the glitch; clearly it must be linked to some kind of evolutionary advantage. But even without knowing its exact nature, I can predict with confidence that any institution which is independent of external constraints will inevitably be dominated by Snobbists. What are examples of such institutions? Academia (especially the humanities and social sciences), government institutions, the arts, the press: exactly where the Snobbists dominate.

Evil Tongue

I have said before that one of the characteristics of a traditional religion is the traditions come first, the explanations later. This is certainly true of Judaism. In fact, you can usually find several, often contradictory, reasons given for a particular tradition. You can even make up your own! If it makes sense within the Jewish tradition, or illustrates a Jewish value, will be accepted as a hidush – renewal (חידוש). Moreover, a lack of logical justification is not seen as a good reason to abandon a tradition, unless the tradition actually runs counter to some other precept. (One way to think of this is as a memetic barrier, in favor of a more “genetic” method of cultural transmission.)

The traditional character of Judaism manifests itself in both trivial an important ways. One small example: There is a notion within Judaism of a “maqom qavua`” – having a “permanent place” in synagogue. When visiting an unfamiliar synagogue, before sitting down, it is polite to ask: “Is this someone’s maqom qavua`?” Now, those hyper-rationalists among you (you know who you are) will probably say: “That’s illogical, one seat is as good as another!” or some such thing. But the fact is that people like sitting in the same place all the time – something about human nature. I don’t know what it is, perhaps the natural preference for things that are “yours”, perhaps feeling like you know the “territory”, but I think if you looked you would find a “logical” reason for it.

A much more serious example is “lashon hara`” – “evil tongue”. This refers to saying bad (but true) things about other people (if it’s not true, it comes under the prohibition of slander). There is something about this issue that has always struck me as bizarre: There seems to be a subconscious awareness of it in day-to-day American culture, but somehow it has never risen far enough into people’s consciousness to be discussed. When I was a teenager, I would often hear people say things like, “I would never say something about someone that I wouldn’t say to his face,” – clearly, I think, an attempt to deal with the issue. It seems to be a part of human nature, but I have never heard it discussed seriously, with adults, or in school, outside of a Jewish context. (Yet another reason to rid ourselves of the government monopoly on education.)

Within Judaism, however, this is one of the most commonly discussed topics. Not only is it a day-to-day challenge, more so than murder or theft (I hope), it is also very complex. When is it permitted to say bad things about another? The general rule is that it’s not, however it’s permitted – even required – to warn a someone from having business dealings with a dishonest businessman. Daily life provides us with many borderline cases, and halakhic authorities will differ in the details, but I think that this important area of ethics is well worth thinking about consciously, and not left to our unconscious.

One borderline case which I deal with fairly often: The need to talk about something. Clearly (to me), saying bad things about people for fun is wrong. But often your psychological health requires you to discuss an issue, and often the issue involves lashon hara`. So what do you do? My answer: Find someone whom you can talk to in confidence, preferably someone who doesn’t know the person involved – someone who is as far removed as possible from the scene of the action.

The harm done by speech is even worse than the harm done by stealing or by cheating someone financially, because amends can be made for monetary harms, but the harm done by speech can never be repaired.

More here.

The Future of Government (don’t we wish…)

I wish my town (and country!) had a government like this (via John Ray):

Mayor Stranczek, a trucking company owner, has been the Mayor of Crestwood since 1969. "Businesses don't become successful by running at a loss, said Stranczek. "When I became Mayor we scrapped the huge Public Works Department that handled water main leaks, etc. We simply contracted these problems out to private contractors. So, instead of having a bunch of workers sitting around when it was raining, collecting wages, insurance and medical benefits, plus machinery like backhoes rusting, we hired firms to do the work. The savings are fantastic. The same goes for bookkeeping. We simply pay an auditor $8,000 a year to do the work. Savings: around $35,000 a year. Thanks to efficient government, there's plenty of money to pay for needed services.

"We have only three full time policemen. But we have 40 part time officers who live in Crestwood and put in 10 - 12 hours a week patrolling the streets. A a result, we have one of the safest towns in America. This year alone we've given our taxpayers a $1,000,000 dollar rebate. When you pay your taxes in Crestwood, you get a 26% rebate. And, because of the sales taxes we're getting from new businesses moving into this desirable area, we hope that within four years, homeowners will have NO property taxes."

Crestwood has just 17 full time employees, compared to a near by town of the same population that has 150 full time employees. "Our budget is $2 million dollars a year while a town of similar size, with 12,000 people, might have a budget of $10 million, said City Director Frank Gassmere. Added Mayor Stranczek: "Folks are happy here and I intend to keep them that way."

Boxenhorn’s wager

Well, three days have passed since I introduced the term: logoism, and nobody has told me the real word for the concept. Could I be the first to need such a term? It seems highly unlikely. I have known for a long time that logoism is my most fundamental belief, that I am a theist for this reason, and not the reverse. I would think that this would be true of others, as well, and that some great mind would have described it.

To be more precise, I had a choice between nihilism and logoism, and chose logoism because nihilism would have made me miserable. I think that is a perfectly good reason, considering that there is no proof either way. Instead we must rely on heuristics. Nihilists will invoke the heuristic of Occam’s Razor – but I invoke the heuristic of human nature. Besides, I have a wager that I’d like to win:

	Believe in Logoism	Believe in Nihilism
Logoism true	happy, right	miserable, wrong
Nihilism true	happy, wrong	miserable, right

Which wager appeals to you?

Shabat Noah

This Sabbath is Shabat Noah, the day when we read the part of the Bible that tells the story of Noah. Now, most of us know the story of Noah: He was commanded to build a huge arc on dry land, three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high – that comes out to about 600ft X 100ft X 60ft – in other words, very large. It took 120 years for him to build it, and during this time he had to endure the ridicule of his neighbors.

And in spite of its great size, as Rabeynu Bakhya pointed out in the 13th century, it wasn’t nearly large enough to fit all the animals in the world! So what happened? God caused a miracle to happen, and miraculously all the animals were able to fit in.

But if a miracle was necessary, why then did God command Noah to work so long and hard build such a huge arc? Even a small one would suffice! Because God wants you to do as much as you can. Only then, will He make a miracle happen.

(Or, as Arnold Palmer once said: The more I practice the luckier I get.)

Shabat Shalom!

Irrational Logoists

My recent post, Nihilists and Necrophiliacs, inspired some very interesting feedback. Among them, Pixy Misa said:

I believe that the only meaning there is to existence is that which we create ourselves.

Where do I fit in? I'm no Islamist, nor a nihilist, but I'm not sure I'm a logoist either.

Jinnderella added:

David, I'm with Pixy Misa-- if I believe what Francis Crick believes-- "The Astonishing Hypothesis, is that 'You,' your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: 'You're nothing but a pack of neurons.'" (via Belmont Club) I guess I do believe in the-god-in-the-genes. Does that qualify me to be logoist?

It seems a lot of people I respect fall into this category – people who (if I understand correctly) think it doesn’t make sense to believe that existence has meaning, since there is no evidence for it – yet betray by their actions that in spite of everything, they do. Often, like Pixy Misa, they will say that they believe in “creating meaning” – I don’t fall for this for a minute! Though I have no trouble with the phrase if you mean to say that you should pursue a life that has meaning for you, if I take it as it seems to be intended, it would imply that an Islamist’s meaning is just as meaningful as Pixy Misa’s, since they are both meanings that they have “created themselves”. Such a meaning for meaning seems to me meaningless. I’ll call these people irrational logoists; since they have an irrational belief in meaning that persists in spite of what their reason is telling them. I know them well, since I was once one of them. (When I made up the term: logoist, to describe people who believe that there is a meaning to existence, I was sure that someone would soon tell me what the “real” term is. So far they haven’t.)

I parted ways with irrational logoism deliberately – I couldn’t stand the cognitive dissonance. I didn’t want to give up my belief in meaning, assuming that that was possible. To do so would be to fall into the abyss, to embrace death in life, passing the time aimlessly with nothing more than sensual pleasures to relieve the boredom. So the choice left to me (besides the continuing anguish of cognitive dissonance) was to embrace meaning wholly, and derive what I reasonably could from it. It took a while, but in the end I succeeded. I did it by doing – by living life as if it had meaning, and eventually I came to understand that, in fact, it did. I am now rarely attacked by nihilistic self-doubt. And the world has become lit up.

There are people who claim it is I, a rational theist, who is suffering from cognitive dissonance. I can only conclude that they have chosen the other path: nihilism.

(My apologies to those whom I have wronged by misunderstanding you. It should be clear that I am talking, here, primarily about myself. I await the clarifications.)

Jinnderella and the Jews

Jinnderella has written a very touching post in support of the Jews:

I want Jews to be cherished and respected citizens of the world. I want them to be able to go on vacation without fear of their hotel being blown up, to be able to get on a bus or go to a restaurant without death stalking them. Last week six Jews won the Nobel prizes for Physics and Chemistry. Think of the contributions made over t