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CANDLELIGHTING

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THE JEWISH VIEW

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HOLIDAYS

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JUDAISM 101

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{weblog_name} - Weird Passover News
Comments (2)

Another season of self-imposed affliction/liberation is almost over, but lots of weird news took place before and during the holiday. Here’s a few tidbits from my friends at the JTA Wire Service Passover Blog (http://blogs.jta.org/passover/), as well as some of my own commentary: • Amongst the seder parodies out this year was a “Wizard of Oz” one that offered the line “If I only had some chrain” (that being the Yiddish word for horse radish). (Hey writer of that: I’m guessing if you did have a chrain, you’d be writing real music, eh?) • The Jewish state’s 120,000 dairy cows received kosher for Passover bedding. You got a beef with that? • Then—and how does a mind conjure this?—there was a “Flinstones” parody with this theme song: “Moses, he’s our Moses/ he’s the man that took us on a… read more

Dear Stuart,

I know you get upset when you feel I’m ignoring you so I wanted you to know that I read this and I don’t feel the need to be defensive in response. Readers have the last say.

May you have restful and meaningful Shabbat and end of yom tov.

I wonder how many other readers of this blog entry caught the same noxious whiff of ignorance, arrogance, and mendacity that I detected.

Even when the topic is ostensibly humorous, Neil Rubin cannot resist the opportunity to trash traditional Judaism.

Consider Rubin’s opening sentence:

“Another season of self-imposed affliction/liberation is almost over…..”

Self-imposed?

Neil (I notice you invite comments now, so let’s see you reply), what exactly does “self-imposed” mean?

Millions of Jews, regardless of their level of observance, love Pesach, a holiday that touches the deepest wellsprings of our identity as Jews. For me personally - and, I suspect, many others - being around the seder table conjures priceless memories of grandparents and parents, long since departed, who taught the meaning and importance of this “self-imposed” holiday.

Of course, according to Rubin’s way of understanding, all of our holidays are “self-imposed.”

So, Neil, do you hate every Jewish holiday, or is it Pesach in particular that you despise, owing to its commemoration of Hashem taking us out of (affliction) bondage and into (liberation) freedom?

Finally, Neil, what is the meaning of your disgusting insinuation on Sandra Bernhard’s quip about hugging Chabad Rabbis at the end of your blog entry?

Are you saying, in your typically too-clever-by-half way, that all Chabad Rabbis are sexual predators? If not, please explain exactly what you do mean.

Is it so hard for you to imagine, barely a year after the Mumbai atrocities, that there are large but uncounted numbers of people, both inside of Chabad and out, who would dearly wish to put their arms around Gavvy and Rivka Holtzberg, and hang onto this precious and beautiful young couple for a very, very long time.

Perhaps in Rubin’s fetid imagination, there is some sexual connotation in this, which I fail to see.

Ms Bernhard might not know this, but, Neil, why don’t you? Where is your self-restraint? (That question is purely rhetorical; “The Jewish Times” has been bashing Orthodox Judaism for years already without the slightest restraint or scruple.)

Readers should notice here how easily the poison generated by the ongoing witch hunt that “The Jewish Times” is conducting against all orthodox Rabbis, especially the more easily identifiable “black hats,” passes into the bloodstream of supposedly civil discourse and even humor.

What is the Bernhard comment and doing on the web site of a supposedly Jewish publication? Still more, what is Mr. Rubin’s obnoxious and hideous insinuation doing here?

This is the kind of garbage - dare anyone call it “self-hating?” - that appears all too frequently on the blog and op-ed pages of this publication.

The leaders of “The Jewish Times,” who carry the words “publisher” and “editor” in their titles,(Buerger, Jacobs, and Rubin; note: not a woman writer among these three esteemed gentlemen!!) suffer from the same debilitating maladies of character:

Ignorance - they don’t know, and they can’t be told;

Arrogance - they think they know what is best for Jews and Judaism;

Mendacity - they despise all forms of traditional Judaism, which they would happily replace with their own brand of utopian “anything goes” behavior.

Their view of what Judaism ought to be is surely an affliction without liberation, and one we need not impose on ourselves.