tabletmag: How about that new Koren Hebrew Prayer Book

Orthodox Jews pray a lot. Really a lot.

The Tablet e-magazine has an article about Koren, the type designer and book publisher whose edition of the siddur has been republished now with an English translation.

Yes, the operative news is that this is not a new siddur publishing event. We have been davening from the 500 page Hebrew Koren siddur since 1983. The new edition is paragraph for paragraph a reprint of the 28 year old original Hebrew siddur - but now more than double the size at 1200+ pages with English translations and commentaries.

We think that the underlying message of the article, "Prayer Type: How Eliyahu Koren used typography to encourage a new way to pray" by Joshua J. Fishman - a laudatory adulation of the Hebrew side of the Koren-Sachs siddur - is that we ought to be clear which is the main part of this liturgical masterpiece.

...Eliyahu Koren, who was in his 70s when he published the original all-Hebrew siddur, in 1981, described his design philosophy in its preface: “From a visual standpoint, the contents of the prayers are presented in a style that does not spur habit and hurry, but rather encourages the worshiper to engross his mind and heart in prayer.” The care and deliberation that Koren hoped to enable in others were values that defined his artistic practice and shaped his career. They would lead him to found his company and to craft both the Koren siddur and the Koren Bible, one of the all-time icons of Hebrew design... more ...

[hat tip to miriam via barak and bernice, thanks...]

More Golf, Less Blog

Play golf while the sun shines.

jstandard: Swimmer Jason Lezak chooses Maccabiah Games over World Championships

Our local paper, the Jewish Standard, today ran a cover story on the Maccabiah Games in Israel. If you have never been, you are missing one of the great events of Jewish peoplehood. I was at the opening ceremonies in 1993 - one of the most moving sporting events I can recall.

The Standard reports that swimmer Jason Lezak has chosen to compete in the Tel Aviv Maccabiah Games rather than in the World Championships in Rome - an absolutely astonishing commentary on the achievements of the Jewish State.

...Lezak registered one of the most dramatic performances during the Beijing games last August, with his late dash to capture gold for the U.S. in the 400-meter relay. He came from about half a body length behind in the last 20 meters to nip the Frenchman Alain Bernard, a former world-record holder in the 100 freestyle.

The clutch performance not only secured victory for the United States, it also saved relay teammate Michael Phelps’ ultimately successful bid to win a record eight Olympic gold medals, snapping the mark of seven set in a single Olympic Games by another Jewish swimmer, Mark Spitz. Lezak also would win his first individual Olympic medal — a bronze in the 100 freestyle....more...

Amazon Fumbles the Kindle. It Yearns to be Free!

We bought three Kindles so far. We sold our first one on ebay for a $600 profit - don't ask how (it was right before xmas and there were none available from Amazon). We returned #2 because it was unable to handle Hebrew. We returned #3 - the big one - because we did not see how we would be using it and $489 was just too darn much to have tied up in a big black and white elephant.

What's Amazon been thinking? They are just not getting what they have achieved with the Kindle - which is truly substantial. (The delivery system and the network connectivity are unmatched.)

Today Amazon dropped the price of the Kindle 2 from $359 to $299. Bad idea.

Amazon needs to give away the Kindle for FREE. Here's how they should do it.

Buy one Kindle for $299. Get $300 in credit for Kindle books. See - once you have bought and read thirty books on the klunky B&W anachronism, you'd be hooked (to some degree anyhow).

For now we are Kindle free - until the Kindle is offered to us for FREE.

Newsweek: Is "cryptomnesia" a valid excuse for plagiarism?

We've been reading a lot just now about that software engineer, Serge Aleynikov, who worked at IDT and Goldman Sachs and now has been arrested by the FBI for stealing intellectual property.

It appears that this type of crime is growing rampant.

This week Newsweek has a fascinating web-exclusive article about cryptomnesia, an excuse some have made for their acts of plagiarism, another related and particularly scurrilous and annoying form of theft.

You didn’t Plagiarize, Your Unconscious Did
Is cryptomnesia—copying the work of others without being aware of it—to blame for journalism's ultimate sin? Um, maybe not.
By Russ Juskalian | Newsweek Web Exclusive

The charge of plagiarism carries a special sort of shame. Take the case of Kaavya Viswanathan, the young writer whose 2006 debut novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, contained so many passages lifted from other books that her writing career was over by her junior year at Harvard. For those whose literary taste is at the opposite end of the spectrum from chick lit, consider Dante: he put the fraudulent in an even deeper circle of hell than the violent.

But could some alleged plagiarists—like Maureen Dowd, Chris Anderson, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and even Viswanathan, who all either deny the charge, or blame their copying on unconscious mistakes—be guilty of psychological sloppiness rather than fraud? Could the real offense be disregard for the mind's subliminal kleptomania? And if it is real, is unconscious copying (or "cryptomnesia" to those who study the phenomenon) preventable? Or, seeing as Nietzsche ripped off a passage of Thus Spoke Zarathustra from something he'd read as a child, and former Beatle George Harrison was found guilty, in court, of unconsciously copying the music for his hit song, "My Sweet Lord"—is cryptomnesia both unavoidable, and the perfect excuse?

"Clearly all of us, referring to journalists, probably appropriate phrases or ideas, on occasion, without realizing it," said Howard Schneider, dean of the School of Journalism at New York's Stony Brook University, and former Newsday editor. But intent and degree count, he said, and journalists should be held to a particularly high standard when it comes to plagiarism...more...

Who were Shoko Asahara and the Buddhist Aum Shinrikyo Religious Terrorists?

What were the Aum Shinrikyo Buddhist's justifications for violence?

While this group shares many of the characteristics of others that we have analyzed in our course on Religion and Terrorism and in our postings here, the uniqueness of their leader and their emphasis on both expecting and trying to cause the apocalyptic end of time makes them stand out.

Marc Juergensmeyer says:

Because he lived on a higher plane, however, he could see things that ordinary people could not see, and his actions were consistent with causal plane reality, not our own. For this reason anything Master Asahara might do that seemed to ordinary mortals as odd - even involvement in conspiracies to kill other people - could be explained as having its impetus and hence its justification in a higher plane of reality. The killers and their victims were simply actors in a divine scenario. When Asahara was put in jail, Nakarnura told me, the members of the movement regarded this incident like a scene in a play: Asahara was playing the role of prisoner, following a script of which they were unaware, for a purpose that only he knew.

The most dramatic scenario described by Asahara was Armageddon, and that concept also justified the taking of life. Once one is caught up in cosmic war, Asahara explained, the ordinary rules of conduct do not apply. "The world economy will have come to a dead stop," he said, somewhere around August 1, 1999. "The ground will tremble violently, and immense walls of water will wash away everything on earth."

In addition to natural disasters, Asahara prophesied, there will be the horror of nuclear weapons. Nerve gas would also be used in that horrific war - sarin gas, specifically.

In a perceptive analysis of the Aum Shinrikyo movement, Ian Reader has linked Aum's concept of cosmic war to a feeling of humiliation. According to Reader, the development of Asahara's concept of Armageddon went hand in hand with a history of rejection experienced both by Asahara and by members of his movement. This sense of rejection led to conflict with the society around them, and these encounters in turn led to greater rejection. This downward spiral of humiliation and confrontation led ultimately to a paranoid attitude of "Aum against the world."

See this website for additional background on Aum Shinrikyo.

Who was Shoko Asahara and what role did his thinking play in Aum terrorism?

Juergensmeyer summarizes:

At the core of Asahara's prophecies was a great cloud casting its shadow over the future: the specter of a world catastrophe unparalleled in human history. Although World War II had been disastrous to Japanese society, this destructive conflagration - including the nuclear holocausts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki - was nothing compared with the coming World War III. The term that Asahara chose for this cataclysmic event, Armageddon, is an interesting one. It comes from the New Testament book of Revelation in the Christian Bible and refers to the place where the final conflict between good and evil will occur. In the biblical account of this conflict, an earthquake splits a great city into parts, and in the calamity that follows all nations perish.

Asahara took the prophecies of Revelation and mixed them with visions from the Old Testament and sayings of the sixteenth-century French astrologer Nostradamus (Michel de Nostredame). It was from Nostradamus that Asahara acquired the notion that Freemasons have been secretly plotting to control the world. To these fears Asahara added the same sort of obsession that Christian Identity thinkers possess regarding Jews as a source of international conspiracy. The CIA was also thought to be involved. Asahara also incorporated Hindu and Buddhist notions of the fragility of life into his prognosis for the world, and claimed that his dire prophecies would be fulfilled in part because humans needed to be taught a lesson about mortality. "Armageddon," Asahara said, must occur because "the inhabitants of the present human realm do not recognize that they are fated to die."

When Armageddon came, Asahara said, the evil forces would attack with the most vicious weapons: Radioactivity and other bad circumstances - poison gas, epidemics, food shortages will occur, the Master predicted. The only people who would survive were those "with great karma" and those who had the defensive protection of the Aum Shinrikyo organization. "They will survive," Asahara said, "and create a new and transcendent human world."

Brief profile from the BBC.

What were the initiation rites for entering into Aum Shinrikyo as described by Nakamura?

Though not entirely spelled out, Juergensmeyer lets Nakamura speak to this point:

The appearance of the master during the initiation ceremony, therefore, was more than the high point of the event; it was the event, as far as Nakamura was concerned. His master entered the room accompanied by a retinue of twenty assistants and was seated on a cushion. Nakamura said that Asahara appeared to be practically blind, though he thought he might have been able to see slightly through one eye. His attitude was serious, even angry, and Nakamura felt he was judging each of them personally. He took a sip from a glass and ritually passed it around the circle of initiates. Nakamura drank from it as instructed. Then Asahara gave a little homily. He told them that he was devoted to both Shiva and the Buddha, and that he expected total devotion from his initiates.

After Master Asahara spoke, the initiates were led away from him to another room, where they were seated on a vibrating mat. They felt the vibration move up their spines as they chanted a mantra and recited the five principles Asahara had taught them. Whatever had been in his drink began to take effect; Nakamura later speculated that it might have been laced with LSD. He began to hallucinate, and Nakamura and the other candidates had mystical experiences. The initiates were asked to report what they saw and felt; they were cautioned that if they saw a dreadful god, all they had to do was to think of Master Asahara and it would vanish. Then actors came into the room, disguised as what Nakamura described as terrible and peaceful gods. They told the initiates that they were in hell and challenged them to think about what they might have done to warrant such a predicament. Nakamura confessed to being frightened by the experience, but a woman who was a seasoned member of the movement was at his side, assuring him that if he continued to trust in Asahara he would survive. After tearful confessions and proclamations of forgiveness were given and the effects of drink had diminished, the initiation was completed. They watched videos of the master's teachings, undertook meditation practices, and were administered intravenous fluids to end their fast.

What happens after when the apocalypse does not come?

When the violent end of time does not happen as predicted, then does the group disband in disillusionment? Most research into apocalyptic religious movements has shown that after the events occur that were supposed to trigger or represent the apocalypse and reality continues as before, the group goes into denial and becomes even tighter and more dedicated to their cause.

Here is the Aum successor group's web site.

The Weekend of the Tipping Point - Sarah Palin is out and Al Franken is in!

We are just overjoyed to see the Republicans on the run.

Sarah Palin has outright quit!

And Al Franken is our newest Jewish senator!

Can you say, "Tipping Point"?

Good news for America.

Is that nefarious Barack-Obama-is-anti-Israel-Urban-Legend Still Circulating?

Yes. The urban legend that Barack Obama is anti-Israel is still circulating widely on Internet blogs, discussion boards and through forwarded emails.

Reputable sources of information have been directly debunking this legend since at least February 2008.

Periodically this urban legend circulates - emanating from right wing sources within the Jewish community and the fundamentalist right wing Christian community.

President Barack Obama in fact is staunchly pro-Israel. The prospects for peace in the Middle East between Israel and its neighbors have improved since Obama took office.

George Bush was the president who oversaw an American foreign policy that tolerated a terrible violent intifada. Bush enthusiastically supported the election that led to the rise of Hamas.

We believe this Obama urban legend is part of a panoply of apocalyptic fantasies that finds an audience as the radical right wing loses its influence within the sphere of political power and discourse in this country.

The echoes of urban legends like this one will reverberate periodically until they ultimately fade from the scene because they lack credibility and have no factual basis.

Bottom line, if you get an email that tells you Barack Obama is anti-Israel, pay it no attention, just delete it.

Was Albert Einstein Jewish?

Yes, it is well known that Albert Einstein was a Jew.

Time Magazine has a brilliant book excerpt about Albert Einstein's interesting religious life and ideas. It seems that he attended Catholic school, admired the Gospel stories of Jesus, was shomer shabbos and mitzvos for a time as a child, rebelled before his bar mitzvah, learned about science and mathematics from a man named Talmud, and created some controversy with his theological musings on the existence and nature of God.

You can read the entire excerpt. Here are a few samples.

Einstein &Faith
By WALTER ISAACSON
...Einstein was descended, on both parents' sides, from Jewish tradesmen and peddlers who had, for at least two centuries, made modest livings in the rural villages of Swabia in southwestern Germany. With each generation they had become increasingly assimilated into the German culture they loved--or so they thought. Although Jewish by cultural designation and kindred instinct, they had little interest in the religion itself.

In his later years, Einstein would tell an old joke about an agnostic uncle who was the only member of his family who went to synagogue. When asked why he did so, the uncle would respond, "Ah, but you never know." Einstein's parents, on the other hand, were "entirely irreligious." They did not keep kosher or attend synagogue, and his father Hermann referred to Jewish rituals as "ancient superstitions," according to a relative.

Consequently, when Albert turned 6 and had to go to school, his parents did not care that there was no Jewish one near their home. Instead he went to the large Catholic school in their neighborhood. As the only Jew among the 70 students in his class, he took the standard course in Catholic religion and ended up enjoying it immensely.

Despite his parents' secularism, or perhaps because of it, Einstein rather suddenly developed a passionate zeal for Judaism. "He was so fervent in his feelings that, on his own, he observed Jewish religious strictures in every detail," his sister recalled. He ate no pork, kept kosher and obeyed the strictures of the Sabbath. He even composed his own hymns, which he sang to himself as he walked home from school.

Einstein's greatest intellectual stimulation came from a poor student who dined with his family once a week. It was an old Jewish custom to take in a needy religious scholar to share the Sabbath meal; the Einsteins modified the tradition by hosting instead a medical student on Thursdays. His name was Max Talmud, and he began his weekly visits when he was 21 and Einstein was 10.

...Einstein's exposure to science and math produced a sudden transformation at age 12, just as he would have been readying for a bar mitzvah. He suddenly gave up Judaism. That decision does not appear to have been drawn from Bernstein's books because the author made clear he saw no contradiction between science and religion. As he put it, "The religious inclination lies in the dim consciousness that dwells in humans that all nature, including the humans in it, is in no way an accidental game, but a work of lawfulness that there is a fundamental cause of all existence."

Einstein would later come close to these sentiments. But at the time, his leap away from faith was a radical one. "Through the reading of popular scientific books, I soon reached the conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true. The consequence was a positively fanatic orgy of free thinking coupled with the impression that youth is intentionally being deceived by the state through lies; it was a crushing impression."

Einstein did, however, retain from his childhood religious phase a profound faith in, and reverence for, the harmony and beauty of what he called the mind of God as it was expressed in the creation of the universe and its laws. Around the time he turned 50, he began to articulate more clearly--in various essays, interviews and letters--his deepening appreciation of his belief in God, although a rather impersonal version of one. One particular evening in 1929, the year he turned 50, captures Einstein's middle-age deistic faith. He and his wife were at a dinner party in Berlin when a guest expressed a belief in astrology. Einstein ridiculed the notion as pure superstition. Another guest stepped in and similarly disparaged religion. Belief in God, he insisted, was likewise a superstition.

At this point the host tried to silence him by invoking the fact that even Einstein harbored religious beliefs. "It isn't possible!" the skeptical guest said, turning to Einstein to ask if he was, in fact, religious. "Yes, you can call it that," Einstein replied calmly. "Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious."

...Do you believe in God? "I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws."

...So in the summer of 1930, amid his sailing and ruminations in Caputh, he composed a credo, "What I Believe," that he recorded for a human-rights group and later published. It concluded with an explanation of what he meant when he called himself religious: "The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."

People found the piece evocative, and it was reprinted repeatedly in a variety of translations. But not surprisingly, it did not satisfy those who wanted a simple answer to the question of whether or not he believed in God. "The outcome of this doubt and befogged speculation about time and space is a cloak beneath which hides the ghastly apparition of atheism," Boston's Cardinal William Henry O'Connell said. This public blast from a Cardinal prompted the noted Orthodox Jewish leader in New York, Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein, to send a very direct telegram: "Do you believe in God? Stop. Answer paid. 50 words." Einstein used only about half his allotted number of words. It became the most famous version of an answer he gave often: "I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of all that exists, but not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind."

Some religious Jews reacted by pointing out that Spinoza had been excommunicated from Amsterdam's Jewish community for holding these beliefs, and that he had also been condemned by the Catholic Church. "Cardinal O'Connell would have done well had he not attacked the Einstein theory," said one Bronx rabbi. "Einstein would have done better had he not proclaimed his nonbelief in a God who is concerned with fates and actions of individuals. Both have handed down dicta outside their jurisdiction."

From Einstein by Walter Isaacson. © 2007 by Walter Isaacson. Published by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Reposted from 2007.

Bloomberg News: Mazal Tov to Baseball's Four Jewish (Probable) All Stars

What puzzles us is when did Bloomberg News become a source of information about Jewish baseball players? Seriously, this is a great story.

If four Jews can make the All Star Team, the Messianic age is near.

We've followed Kevin Youkilis for a while. He and pitcher Jason Marquis are full-fledged members of the tribe. Ryan Braun and Ian Kinsler are tribally Jewish by father only, perhaps a problem for Orthodox baseball fans but not their Reform counterparts.

And here is the funniest Youkilis - Dennis Leary Video clip we ever saw.

What Does It Mean for the Jews With Youkilis, Braun, Kinsler?
By Mason Levinson

July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Jewish fans of baseball -- fascinated with Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg and Lou Boudreau -- may have a new crop of athletes to dote upon at this year’s All-Star Game.

Ryan Braun, Kevin Youkilis and Ian Kinsler lead in balloting for the squads, and pitcher Jason Marquis had the most wins in his league through June 30, meaning the four Jewish players are favorites to earn invitations to Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game on July 14. It would be the first time four Jews were named to the event.

“We’re in a glory time for Jewish baseball players,” said Howard Megdal, author of “The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball’s Chosen Players.” “The fact that you have three stars in Kinsler, Braun and Youkilis all under the age of 30 and all seemingly continuing to improve is a very impressive thing.”

Greenberg, Boudreau and Goody Rosen all were named 1945 All-Stars, though the game wasn’t played due to World War II. Jewish players Mike Lieberthal, Brad Ausmus and Shawn Green each earned the honor in 1999, and last year, Braun, Youkilis and Kinsler were selected.

Youkilis, who turned 30 in March, was raised in a conservative Jewish household, as was Marquis, also 30. Braun, 25, and Kinsler, 27, both said they consider themselves representatives of the Jewish community after being born to Jewish fathers and Christian mothers.

Both Kinsler, the Texas Rangers’ second-baseman, and Youkilis, a first baseman for the Boston Red Sox, lead the American League voting at their positions. Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers is second in the National League outfielder voting, with the top three earning starting positions.

Rockies’ Marquis

Marquis, who is 10-5 for the Colorado Rockies, two days ago became the first NL pitcher to win his 10th game this season. The All-Star starters will be announced on July 5.

“I don’t know if it’s a heyday or what you’d call it,” Youkilis said in an interview. “Hopefully, there’s more to come after us.”

Youkilis, who is batting .314, isn’t hesitant to joke about his background with fellow Jewish players.

“He’ll throw little comments at me every once in a while if I reach first while he’s playing,” Kinsler, who had 19 home runs through June 30, said in an interview. “He’ll just say, ‘Happy Passover,’ or something stupid like that. He’s pretty into it.”

160 Jews

Just 160 Jews -- those who either had a Jewish parent or considered themselves Jewish -- have played in the big leagues, according to the Jewish Sports Review, making up 0.9 percent of the approximately 16,900-man all-time roster. While Jews make up 2.2 percent of the American population, according to the American Jewish Yearbook, the 11 active pro players account for 1.5 percent of today’s major-leaguers.

With books on Jews and baseball, as well as a documentary and even some college classes, the sport provides a way for Jews, and all Americans, to think about the way the world works, said Rabbi Rebecca Alpert, who teaches a course titled “Jews, America and Sports” at Temple University in Philadelphia.

“It’s a way of Jews feeling like we belong,” she said. “If baseball is the national pastime, it’s kind of a way of saying, ‘We’re part of that too. We’re part of that story.’”

‘Jewish Sports Legends’

The generalization of Jews as non-athletes was parodied in the 1980 movie “Airplane!,” when flight attendant Elaine Dickinson, played by Julie Hagerty, asked a passenger if she would like something to read. When the woman asked, “Do you have anything light?” Hagerty’s character replied: “How about this leaflet, ‘Famous Jewish Sports Legends.’”

“There is this kind of self-image that somehow Jews were not (athletes), either because of a religious dislike of blood sport or a historic sense that Jews were supposed to be studious,” Alpert said in a telephone interview. “Jews kind of get counted out of the history of sport, and if you look back, it isn’t quite so true.”

Megdal’s book ranks every Jewish major-leaguer by the position he has played, using modern statistical analysis to compare generations. He found that Greenberg narrowly topped Koufax as the greatest Jewish ballplayer, and that third base was the weakest Jewish position.

Third Base

“Third base is a paradox for the Jewish people,” according to Megdal’s “The Baseball Talmud.” “Given the lack of Jewish players at the position, you’d think the bag was made of pork.”

“That’s pretty funny,” Braun said in an interview when read the excerpt. Rather than Kosher considerations, he suggested that the inactivity and tendency for short hops at third base were the reasons he struggled there for a season before being moved to left field.

Among those more famous for a Jewish background (thanks partly to an incorrect mention in Adam Sandler’s “Hanukah Song”) is Hall of Fame inductee Rod Carew. Though Carew married a Jewish woman and raised his children in the religion, he never converted or identified himself as Jewish. Had he, he would have joined Ken Holtzman and Richie Scheinblum as a Jewish threesome in the 1972 All-Star Game.

Megdal predicts that Braun will retire as the third- greatest Jewish player, with Kinsler and Youkilis also making the top 10. Carew, whose 3,053 hits are 22nd all-time, isn’t on the list.

“Unfortunately not,” Megdal said. “He’d be nice at the top of the order.”