Haderet v'haemunah l'chai olamim. Habinah v'habracha l'chai olamim. Hagavah v'hag'dulah l'chai olamim. Hadeah v'hadibur l'chai olamim. Hahod v'hehadar l'chai olamim. Haviud v'havatikut l'chai olamim. Hazach v'hazohar l'chai olamim. Hachayil v'hachosen l'chai olamim. Hateches v'hatohar l'chai olamim. Hayichud v'hayir'ah l'chai olamim. Haketer v'hakavod l'chai olamim. Ham'lucha v'hamemshalah l'chai olamim. Hanoi v'hanetzach l'chai olamim. Haoz v'ha'anavah l'chai olamim. Hap'dut v'hap'er l'chai olamim. Hatz'vi v'hatzedek l'chai olamim. Hak'riah v'hak'dushah l'chai olamim. Haron v'harom'mut l'chai olamim. Hashir v'hashevach l'chai olamim. Hat'hilah v'hatif'eret l'chai olamim.

הָאַּדֶֽרֶת וְהָאֱמונָה לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּבִינָה וְהַּבְרָכָה לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּגַאֲוָה וְהַּגְדֻלָה לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּדֵעָה וְהַּדִּבור לְחַי עולָמִים. הַהוד וְהֶהָדָר לְחַי עולָמִים. הַוַֽעַד וְהַוָתִיקות לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּזָךְ וְהַּזֹֽהַר לְחַי עולָמִים. הַחַֽיִל וְהַחֹֽסֶן לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּטֶֽכֶס וְהַּטֹֽהַר לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּיִחוד וְהַּיִרְאָה לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּכֶֽתֶר וְהַּכָבוד לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּלֶֽקַח וְהַּלִּבוב לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּמְלוכָה וְהַּמֶמְׁשָלָה לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּנוי וְהַּנֵֽצַח לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּסִּגוי וְהַׂשֶֽגֶב לְחַי עולָמִים. הָעֹז וְהָעֲנָוָה לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּפְדות וְהַּפְאֵר לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּצְבִי וְהַּצֶֽדֶק לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּקְרִיאָה וְהַּקְדֻׁשָה לְחַי עולָמִים. הָרֹן וְהָרומֵמות לְחַי עולָמִים. הַׁשִיר וְהַׁשֶֽבַח לְחַי עולָמִים. הַּתְהִּלָה וְהַּתִפְאֶֽרֶת לְחַי עולָמִים.

And here's Chabad in Moscow rocking out, Yngwie Malmsteen style.

Considering Mendelssohn

I think I've finally worked out, sans judgments, how to consider the transition from Moses to Felix. And it's all with the help of postcolonialism! Obviously at this time, there was no way to properly meld Germanness and Jewishness. But what happens when the dominate culture is actually seen as superior, rather than just a simple commonality? What I mean is, there was an inability to reconcile Kant with the Talmud. One had to merge victorious. If you're raised in an environment that has such a strong reaction to Jewish tradition (Abraham, Felix's vater), then assimilation will reach an apotheosis. Then you can make a value judgment, because Jews without any semblance of Jewishness isn't something most of us want. Reform Judaism remains Jewish because of its strong reaction to the Talmud, all the while maintaining dialogue with it. Unlike Leo Zunz, Reform does not dismiss rabbinical texts outright.

To segue:
Secular Judaism/Jewishness maintains itself by engaging with rabbinical tradition; that is, the binary of rabbinics/secularism maintains its very existence. Secularism exists outside and alongside rabbinics. What is literature if not aggadah? What are Jews if not Karaites?

My Relationship with the Fatherland

אויב פארגעס איך אייך, טאטע-לאנד

But it is you who have forgotten me, the groom to Israel's bride. Could a Jew ever have both Fatherland and Motherland? Did Agnon? I have settled for a third: America; but it's not a synthesis.

My Atheism

I think, more than anything, I reject God on phallogocentric grounds; our old notions of God as a single, supreme male, deconstruct (and if we can make a value judgment, this is "good"), and the discourse then opens to a more expansive and inclusive (Spinozan?) realm.

Atheism, for me, is an intellectual exercise. Perhaps I've killed God. I don't know.

But the issue isn't cut and dry, and that is why I reject Humanistic Judaism, even though I embrace and cherish human intelligence and emotion above all else. There is too much hubris within atheist thought. Science will explain the physical laws of the Universe, but it will never explain all the intricacies of human experience and everything it entails-- that, I believe, is more expansive than the all the galaxies. That is "spirituality" and religion, and the reason that being a Jew (being a person) is a fluid continuum of belief and practice.

Scholarship as Spirituality

The question is: am I filling a lack by being in school? By which I mean to imply that perhaps I'm also "making up" for being raised without a totally encompassing Jewish education or whatever? From here on, will I have to reach for successively higher plateaus of some kind of Jewishness?

Gay, frum Jews

"From my perspective the notion of "a life built on cognitive dissonance" is neither religiously viable nor traditionally Jewish. It seems to me that Orthodoxy (modern to ultra) simply doesn't have the tools to provide the kind of open minded, halakhically observant, passionately Jewish communities that LGBTQ Jews need. Good thing there is something called "Conservative Judaism" which provides all of those things and luckily (at least for those Jews living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan) it is right down the block."

Me: Let's see: can't get married, can't be a rabbi. Sounds as great as being a gay republican. Obviously no one's identity is an oxymoron, but what's the point of joining a club that doesn't want you? You can join another branch and retain your frumness. And why would God forbid us to do something that harms no one? Continuing to take the Torah as the divine word is a whole other can of worms. Grow up, my fellow queers. You guys are late to the party anyways; legitimate critiques were lodged against orthodoxy over 100 years ago.

The sheer irrationality that people come up with just to stay part of a group (a hateful one, at that) is infuriating.

Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/135255/#ixzz1DfmO92rI

Washington is kinda like Hitler, right?

‎Person A: "I was thinking about how we celebrate George Washington...But we got to start telling the truth. He owned other people. If they were good slaves, somebody made them good by beating them half to death...It's kind of like the Jews being made to celebrate Hitler. That's the way black people have to celebrate slaveowners of our past." Joseph Lattimore, quoted in Studs Terkel's Race.

Person B: If we so discriminated our historical figures, then we should never celebrate history. That Martin Luther King cheated on his wife many a times. We should not have a day for people who do not keep their vows. Gandhi beat his wife, we should not celebrate domestic violence. Yet since history is a constant series of oversimplifications, we simply try to remember what is admirable and move on from there.

Me: Yeah, shit. The more I think about this, it's actually kind of ignorant and offensive. We don't worship Thomas Jefferson qua slaveholder--we readily admit his faults and those of our other "founding fathers"; and we (should) recognize the term as sexist, too. Seeing Jefferson as nothing other than a slaveholder is just as bad as seeing him as nothing other than a "founding father". So, this statement is ignorant AND hypocritical: it is overly reductive.

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I have read parts of Race, love Studs Terkel, and think ethnographic research carries a lot of value; however, we need to recognize the lack of credibility the "on-the-street" style interview also has. Peoples' feelings are valid, but sometimes their opinions aren't. Obviously we should try to tell the whole truth about figures as significant as Washington and Hitler. This, everyone can agree on.