Judaism discovered

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Maimonides and Kabbalah

In Judaism's system of deception, Maimonides is posited as the anti-superstition rabbi who discountenanced the Kabbalah. By this means rabbis under scrutiny for their rank superstitions can deflect criticism by claiming that Judaism is not superstitious since its most respected legal decisor, Maimonides, eschewed all types of Kabbalistic gnosis and "worshippers of stars and planets." The rabbis promote Maimonides on cue, as the quintessentially anti-superstition rabbi because he sneered at amulet-making and similar rabbinic practices. But Maimonides made the "Jewish race" into God, so we ask, which is more idolatrous, to worship a star or one's self?

The alleged opposition or incompatibility between Kabbalistic Judaism and Maimonides' halachic Judaism is a hoax. Maimonides was revered by many of the seminal Kabbalists of history, including Rabbi Haim David Azulai, Rabbi Gershon Henoch of Radzin, Rabbi Yitzhak (the Komarno Rebbe), and the preeminent Rabbi Abraham Abulafia (the latter a major influence on Moses Cordevero and Haim Vital). Abulafia, for example, esteemed Maimonides book, The Guide of the Perplexed as a Kabbalistic text. In this regard, cf. David Bakan's Maimonides on Prophecy (Jason Aronson Inc. N.J.).

Notwithstanding the use which the illusion machine has made of Maimonides in this regard, the essence of Orthodox Judaism is superstition and magic: "...the rabbis believe that the man truly made in the divine image is the rabbi; he embodies revelation —both oral and written —and all his actions constitute paradigms that are not merely correct, but holy and heavenly. Rabbis enjoy exceptional grace from heaven. Torah is held to be a source of supernatural power. The rabbis control the power of Torah because of their mastery of its contents. They furthermore use their own mastery of Torah quite independent of heavenly action. They issue blessings and curses, create men and animals, and master witchcraft, incantations, and amulets. They communicate with heaven. Their Torah is sufficiently effective to thwart the action of demons. However much they disapprove of other people's magic, they themselves do the things magicians do. Other elements of rabbinic theology cannot be ignored. Demons, witchcraft, and incantations; revelations through omens, dreams, and astrology; the efficacy of prayers and magical formulas; rabbinical blessings and curses; the merit acquired through study

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of the Torah and obedience to both the commandments and the sages — all these constitute important components of the rabbinic world view. A comprehensive account of the rabbis' beliefs about this world and those above and below, and about the invisible beings that populate space and carry out divine orders, would yield a considerably more complicated theology than that briefly given here. Its main outlines, however, would not be much modified, for magic, angels, demons, and the rest represent the way the rabbis think matters work themselves out — all these elements constitute the technology of the rabbis' theological world view." ⁶¹⁰

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Kaparot: The Sin Chicken

TRADITION! An observant Jew in Crown Heights recites a blessing yesterday as part of a ceremony to transfer one's sins to a chicken,

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One revealing pagan custom in Judaism involves participation in the kaparot (also spelled "kapparot") ceremony, an ancient tradition of Judaism involving the transfer of one's sins to a chicken, by shlugging (holding) it over one's head. It is practiced in Orthodox Judaism; it was nothing unusual for the "Chabad House Jewish Student Center" at the State University of New York at Binghamton to undertake this voodoo-like ceremony for its members in September of 2000. The kaparot rite is performed on the day before Yom Kippur. The ritual is enacted as follows: a Judaic grabs a live chicken by its feet and swirls it over his head three times while intoning the words, "This is my atonement, this is my ransom, this is my substitute." After the Judaic's sins have entered the chicken, the chicken is ritually killed and donated to the indigent for consumption.

The revered sixteenth century halakhist, the ReMA, Rabbi Moses Isserles, ^6I1 who was considered the "Maimonides of East European Jewry," approved of the rite, as did many Orthodox rabbinic authorities.

There was a notable dissenter against kaparot: Rabbi Joseph Karo, the compiler of the Shulchan Aruch. Here is where our critics will attempt to buttress their claim that the Torah SheBeal Peh is no more than a collection of diverse opinions and that contrary to the "distortions and fabrications of antisemites," Orthodox Judaism is basically a freewheeling debating society, or as the saying goes, "For every two Jews, there are three views." It is said that Karo took a principled stand against the pagan aspects of kaparot. Nonsense. Karo had no such scruples. Karo's dissent was motivated by whether or not the gentiles would learn of the kaparot rite, thus blowing the cover off Judaism's image of strict Old Testament fidelity. Rabbi Moses Isserles however, believed kaparot was too obscure to attract the attention and— even if they did notice it — the indignation of gentiles. The poskim ruled with Rabbi Isserles. On the halachic principle oiacharei rabim le-hatos ("follow the majority"), Isserles' approval of kaparot carried the day.

In our day, viz., the Internet age, the kaparot rite is again becoming controversial in Judaism, where it now exists in the tension between the public relations-oriented fear that too many gentiles are learning about it, and may not be dissuaded by the usual canting grandiloquence asserting that

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it is not pagan; and, on the other hand, the emerging rabbinic supremacist Zeitgeist in which it doesn't particularly matter what outrageous practice or doctrine Judaism divulges about itself, it will nevertheless retain the obeisance of the mentally and spiritually-crippled modern gentile masses in spite of the scandalous revelations. Troglodytes among the goyim will swallow the line that the issue of permitting or proscribing kaparot rests on principled debate concerning the danger of paganism encroaching on Judaism. Others in the know realize that Judaism is Babylonian paganism. One cannot remove paganism from Judaism, there would be nothing remaining sufficient to sustain a systematic theology. The authentic issue is Judaism's circumspect epistemology of dissimulation and its chameleon-like propensity for projecting an adapted outward image synchronized with the prevailing Zeitgeist. Kaparot is revealed or obscured by these criteria.

Saugerties, New York — Abandoned chickens saved from death — Their name is their fate - broilers. And, but for the efforts of a local animal sanctuary, 200 or so abandoned Brooklyn broilers were saved from a fate worse than deep-frying during the weekend. Animal rescue officials believe a dozen crowded crates of starving chickens discovered Sunday in an empty Coney Island lot were unused leftovers that had been scheduled for slaughter as part of an unusual religious ceremony. The atonement ceremony, called 'kapparot,' is practiced in some ultra-Orthodox Hasidic sects on the eve of Yom Kippur. The ceremony requires a man or woman to wave a chicken over his or her head three times while reciting a prayer. The chicken is then slaughtered and given to the poor. It wasn't the practice itself that caught the attention of the Manhattan ASPCA last weekend — it was the discovery of the dying and dead broilers that eventually sent the chickens north to the Catskill Animal Sanctuary. Joe Pentangelo, a special agent for the Manhattan ASPCA, said yesterday that an investigation was continuing into who was responsible for leaving the chickens behind. No arrests have been made, he said. Most of the bedeviled broilers escaped their fate a second time Sunday, even though the ASPCA is best suited to saving cats and dogs, not squadrons of chickens. But before that could happen, an ASPCA official reached out to the Catskill Animal Sanctuary, which agreed to accept and care for the starving and dehydrated creatures. Two van loads of bedraggled broilers arrived at the sanctuary's 100-acre spread on Monday. A warm corner of a barn was the flock's first taste of freedom, according to Kathy Stevens, director of CAS..." ⁶¹²

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The Talmudic Man who was Reincarnated as a Talking Fish

"And so it came to pass that a talking carp, shouting in Hebrew, shattered the calm of the New Square (New York) Fish Market and created what many here are calling a miracle. Of course, others are calling it a Purim trick, a loopy tale worthy of Isaac Bashevis Singer or just a whopping fish story concocted by a couple of meshugeneks.⁶¹³ Whatever one calls it, the tale of the talking fish has spread in recent weeks throughout this tight-knit Rockland County community, populated by about 7,000 members of the Skver sect of Hasidim, and throughout the Hasidic world, inspiring heated debate, Talmudic discussions and derisive jokes. The story goes that a 20-pound carp about to be slaughtered and made into gefilte fish for Sabbath dinner began speaking in Hebrew, shouting apocalyptic warnings and claiming to be the troubled soul of a revered community elder who recently died. Many people here believe that it was God revealing himself that day to two fish cutters in the fish market, Zalmen Rosen, a 57-year-old Hasid with 11 children, and his co-worker Luis Nivelo, a 30-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant. Some people say the story is as credible as the Bible's account of the burning bush. Others compare it to a U.F.O. sighting. But the story rapidly spread around the world from New Square, a town about 30 miles northwest of Manhattan, first through word of mouth, then through the Jewish press. The two men say they have each gotten hundreds of phone calls from Jews all over the world. 'Ah, enough already about the fish/ Mr. Rosen said today at the shop, as he skinned a large carp. 1 wish I never said anything about it. I'm getting so many calls every day, I've stopped answering. Israel, London, Miami, Brooklyn. They all want to hear about the talking fish.' Here then is the story, according to the two men, the only witnesses. Mr. Rosen, whose family owns the store, and Mr. Nivelo, who has worked at the shop for seven years, say that on Jan. 28 at 4 p.m. they were carving up carp. Mr. Nivelo, who is not Jewish, lifted a live carp out of a box of iced-down fish and was about to club it in the head. But the fish began speaking in Hebrew, according to the two men. Mr. Nivelo does not understand Hebrew, but the shock of a fish speaking any language, he said, forced him against the wall and down to the slimy wooden packing crates

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that cover the floor. He looked around to see if the voice had come from the slop sink, the other room or the shop's cat. Then he ran into the front of the store screaming, 'The fish is talking!' and pulled Mr. Rosen away from the phone. 'I screamed, 'It's the devil! The devil is here!' he recalled. 'But Zalmen said to me, 'You crazy, you a meshugeneh? But Mr. Rosen said that when he approached the fish he heard it uttering warnings and commands in Hebrew. Tt said Tzaruch shemirah and Hasof bah? he said, 'which essentially means that everyone needs to account for themselves because the end is near.'

"The fish commanded Mr. Rosen to pray and to study the Torah and identified itself as the soul of a local Hasidic man who died last year, childless. The man often bought carp at the shop for the Sabbath meals of poorer village residents. Mr. Rosen panicked and tried to kill the fish with a machete-size knife. But the fish bucked so wildly that Mr. Rosen wound up cutting his own thumb and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. The fish flopped off the counter and back into the carp box and was butchered by Mr. Nivelo and sold. The story has been told and retold, and many Jews believe that the talking fish was a rare shimmer of God's spirit. Some call it a warning about the dangers of the impending war in Iraq. 'Two men do not dream the same dream,' said Abraham Spitz, a New Square resident who stopped by the store this week. It is very rare that God reminds people he exists in this modern world. But when he does, you cannot ignore it.' Others consider it as fictional as Tony Soprano's talking-fish dream in an episode of the 'The Sopranos.' 'Listen to what I'm telling you: Only children take this seriously,' said Rabbi C. Meyer of the New Square Beth Din of Kashrus, which administers kosher-food rules. 'This is like a U.F.O. story. I don't care if it is the talk of the town.' Whether hoax or historic event, it jibes with the belief of some Hasidic sects that righteous people can be reincarnated as fish. Unnatural occurrences play a part in the mystical beliefs of members of the Skver sect. On the other hand, some skeptics note that the Jewish festival of Purim, which starts Monday night, is marked by merriment and pranks, which might be a less elevated explanation for the story. Some community members are calling the two men an enlightened pair chosen to receive the message. Others have said that Mr. Nivelo may have been selected because he is not Jewish. Tf this was a story concocted by a bunch of Jewish guys, it might be suspect, but this Luis, or whatever his name is, he has no idea what this means,' said Matisyahu Wolfberg, a local lawyer. 'If people say God talks

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to them, we recommend a psychiatrist, but this is different,' said Mr. Wolfberg, sitting in his office with his black hat resting atop his computer terminal. 'This is one of those historical times when God reveals himself for a reason. It has sent spiritual shock waves throughout the Jewish community worldwide and will be talked about throughout the ages.' Zev Brenner, who last week broadcast a show about the fish on Talk Line,' his talk radio show on Jewish issues, on WMCA-AM and WSNR-AM, said that the story has fascinated the religious community worldwide. 'I've gotten calls from all over asking 'Did you hear about the fish?' he said. Tou can imagine, a talking fish has got people buzzing. This is going to be talked about for a long time to come, unless it's somehow verified as a hoax, which is hard to imagine, since the proof has been eaten up.' Mr. Brenner said that the story is so well known that it has inspired a whole new genre of wedding jokes for Jewish comedians. 'The station had an advertiser, a gefilte fish manufacturer, who considered changing his slogan to 'Our fish speaks for itself,' but decided people would be offended,' he said. As for Mr. Nivelo, a practicing Christian, he still believes the babbling carp was the devil. His wife told him he was crazy, and his 6-year-old daughter even laughs at him. T don't believe any of this Jewish stuff,' he said. 'But I heard that fish talk'" He said that Spanish-speaking rabbis have been calling his home every day and night asking him to recount the story. 'It's just a big headache for me,' he added. 'I pull my phone out of the wall at night. I don't sleep and I've lost weight.' Mr. Rosen said that he spoke to his wife, who was visiting Israel, and that she had already heard the story from someone else. 'My phone doesn't stop ringing,' Mr. Rosen said. 'Always interruptions, people coming in and taking their picture with me." ⁶¹⁴

Holy Paganism "I was skinny-dipping in the mud springs on the shores of the Dead Sea with Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi, a longhaired renegade kabbalist who runs a commune in the Judean Desert. We were enveloped by the softest, silkiest mud I've ever felt — it was like moving through thick cream. Then the rabbi told me to dive down as deep as I can go. When we each came up for air, he said, 'At this moment, you are penetrating Mother Earth at her deepest place.' So this is Jewish paganism...thanks to a new generation of young

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rabbis, it seems to be growing. If you're like me, you probably associate paganism with everything opposed to Judaism: polytheism, idolatry, nature spirits and human sacrifice...For some in the Jewish community, this translates into rituals celebrating the 'Divine feminine' (which the Kabbalah has been doing for centuries anyway)...For Rabbi Jill Hammer, whose organization, Tel Shemesh, is dedicated to 'celebrating and creating Earth-centered rituals within Judaism,' contemporary paganism is actually nothing new. Contrary to those who say that paganism equals idolatry...Hammer argues that 'paganism has always been part of Judaism. The rabbis in the Talmud are worried about idolatrous objects, but they do magical spells. They're involved in the same things they would consider pagan if other people did them...'

"But what about idolatry? The world is full of living forces,' Ezrahi replied. 'Avodah zara — idolatry — is when you give power to those forces, when you think that each thing has its own power, separate from the One.' The way Ezrahi explains it, monotheism is 'a second stage after the experience of being a pagan. If you don't experience paganism, your monotheism is more an ideology than a religious experience. First you have to know that there is a spirit in the tree, and in the river, and in the sky. Then you can know that it's really all one spirit.' So how does this play out in practice? At one extreme, there are kibbutzim re-enacting the harvest holidays, Jewish gatherings at festivals in Israel and America, even Jewish shamanism. For example, Rabbi Gershon Winkler is the director of the Walking Stick Foundation, which trains students to become shamanic..Winkler and his students...Rabbi Menachem Cohen, leader of the Jewish community at the Burning Man festival...emphasize the 'pagan' content of existing Jewish rituals. Tashlich, for example, is the cleansing, renewing ritual of throwing breadcrumbs — symbolizing the 'sins' of the last year — into a body of water. For many Jews, this is a faintly ridiculous custom. But for Amichai Lau-Lavie, the flamboyant founder and artistic director of Storahtelling: Jewish Ritual Theater Revised, it is a primal, pagan act of community expiation.

"...For Rabbi Mordechai Gafni, a controversial, charismatic rabbi with two best-selling books and an Israeli television program, it all depends on how paganism is put into context. For Gafni, paganism was the essence of biblical Jewish practice. But, he said, 'we need to distinguish between 'level one'

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paganism and this new, 'level three' paganism. Level one is the idea in its raw form, and it was rejected by level two, which is the religion of the prophets. The prophets saw that level one paganism was all about eros, with its power and passion. There was no ethics. The prophets rejected that. They said, 'God's primary demand is ethical behavior.' And the prophets are right. But level three both transcends and includes level two. We don't get rid of prophetic ethics, but we move from that place to eros. We reclaim eros, the energy of Shechinah, the energy of the goddess, and unite it with ethics.'

"...Since then, Ezrahi added, the pagan parts of the Talmud were minimized and marginalized by rationalistic rabbis. As a result, Gafni said, our culture has gotten so devoid of spirit that paganism is needed to rescue ethics itself. 'All ethical failure comes from a lack of eros...' 'But,' I asked the rabbi, 'how do we know that we're not in danger of precisely that which so many sacred texts warn about?' The answer, he said, is ethics. Tou know it's holy eros because it leads to ethics. People help each other, work with each other. That's the litmus test.' And the opposite? 'A KKK rally,' Gafni answered. 'Lots of bonfires, lots of energy. No ethics. That's the distinction between holy paganism and idolatry." ⁶¹⁵

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Another Hoax: The Schindler's List Quote

The motto of Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning movie, "Schindler's List," is "Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world." The motto is printed on posters and classroom materials used in schools in association with the movie and banners paid for by the Ford Motor Co. In the film this quotation is attributed to the Talmud. These are beautiful words. Too bad Spielberg had to fib and pretend they were from the Talmud. He sparked an urban legend, which now associates this humane and decent proverb with the inhumane and indecent Talmud, where it does not appear. This is quite an achievement, by a master hoaxer. Let's briefly examine how this fabricated phrase has penetrated our minds.

"According to the Talmud, if you save one life, it's as if you've saved the whole word."— Arkansas Leader.⁶¹⁶

"A leading historian of World War II has just published a book which documents the action of the Church and Pope Pius XII...Sir Martin Gilbert's / Giusti, gli eroi sconosciuti dell'Olocausto ('The Righteous, Unknown Heroes of the Holocaust') was published by Citta Nuova and presented in Rome last Wednesday (Jan. 24, 2007). Gilbert, 70, is a professor of the History of the Holocaust at University College, London, and the author of 72 books. Known as the official biographer of Winston Churchill, he was knighted in 1995 for his service to British history and international relations...In the inside cover of the book, Gilbert notes that in the Talmud it is written that 'he who saves a life, saves the whole world,' and that this is the reason why the Holocaust History Museum at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem memorial remembers and honors the 'righteous." ⁶¹⁷

"This passage echoes the Talmud's injunction, 'If you save one life, it is as if you have saved the world.' (Robert Satloff, 'The Holocaust's Arab Heroes)." ⁶¹⁸

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"In the Talmud it says when you save one human life it is as if you save the whole human world." (Rev. Dr. Abuna Elias Chacour, Catholic Bishop of Galilee.⁶¹⁹

"Jewish tradition holds that our bodies belong to God, and as such, it is incumbent upon us to preserve human life and health. In fact, Jews have a duty to seek and develop new cures for human diseases. The Talmud states, 'To save a life is as though you saved the world.' Perhaps that is why so many Jews choose medicine as a career. (Bryan-College Station Eagle).⁶²⁰

"At the end of the war, those who survived under Schindler's protection gave him a gold ring on which were engraved a sentence from the Talmud: 'Whoever saves one life saves the entire world." (Deutsche Welle, Jan. 27, 2006).

^Sh ^f3The Mishnah returns to the judges' words of intimidation- Therefore, man was created, alone as . a simple individual — ^Mto teach you that whoever destroys even a single life in Israel, '^Scripture regards him as if he had destroyed an entire world. ^I6ftnd the converse is also true: Whoever saves a single life in Israel, ^l7Scripture regards him as if he had saved the entire world.

BT Sanhedrin 37a (uncensored) ⁶²¹

The Talmud passage referred to in "Schindler" is BT Sanhedrin 37a. It reads in the Steinsaltz edition, as follows: "whoever destroys even a single life in Israel, Scripture regards him as if he had destroyed an entire world. And the converse is also true: Whoever saves a single life in Israel, Scripture regards him as if he had saved the entire world." ⁶²² Rabbi Neusner's translation of the Mishnah also supports Steinsaltz's edition of the Talmud, yet is even more specific as to whom the teaching actually applies: "Whoever destroys a single Israelite soul is deemed by Scripture as if he had destroyed a whole world. And whoever saves a single Israelite soul is deemed by Scripture as if he saved a whole world."

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As we have seen in the case of "Schindler's List," Sanhedrin 37a is often inappropriately applied to anyone saving anyone's life. This is due to the fact that English versions of the Talmud have been censored. Neither the authentic Talmud nor the Mishnah support such an interpretation. The Talmud and Mishnah restrict the duty to save life to saving only Judaic lives. The book on Hebrew censorship, Hesronot Ha-shas, notes that censored Talmud texts use the universalist phrasing: "Whoever destroys the life of a single human being...it is as if he had destroyed an entire world; and whoever preserves the life of a single human being ...it is as if he had preserved an entire world." However, Hesronot Ha-shas points out that this is not the authentic text of the Talmud. In other words, the rendering used by "Schindler's List" is a counterfeit and thus, the universalist version which Steven Spielberg in his famous movie attributes to the Talmud, is intended to give a humanistic gloss to a rabbinic text, which, in its essence, constitutes racist hate literature. Spielberg suppressed the actual Talmudic saying in favor of a fanciful version more suitable to the indoctrination he sought to impress upon his international audience, estimated to be in the hundreds of millions, many of them young people.

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