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The Donald and Hillary meet Korach and Zelophehad's daughters

7/31/2016

Despite my vow to ignore the theatrics in Cleveland and Philadelphia, I caved.
My husband begged. “Turn off the TV. Turn on some Beethoven. Turn in and go to bed,” but, no.

I watched both the Republican and Democrat National Conventions from gavel to gavel. For eight days I let myself be pummeled by politicians and pundits, suffered self-inflicted information overload and then (to compound the injury), even after the last shred of confetti was swept from the Quicken Loans Arena and the Wells Fargo Center,
I stayed awake until dawn Google-ing:

* Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s height (7’2”)

* how to walk in those killer Trumpian-stilettos (tape together the third and fourth toes of each foot, counting from the big toe outward.)

* the Israeli industry brought to Virginia by VP candidate Tim Kaine (Sabra Hummus)

* cost of kosher food served inside the Dem. Convention (pastrami dog, $10.50; corned beef sandwich, $14.75, dished up before Chabad-sponsored Mincha which begins at 2:15 p.m.)

* the most non-partisan entrepreneur during both conventions (Marc Daniels selling Trump, Hillary and Bernie yarmulkes at ten bucks a pop.)

* the name of Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s hairdresser. (N/A)

Call it dumb, this trivia search. Still, as the French novelist Colette wrote, “You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.” So I Googled on.

Could a search connect Hillary Clinton’s place in history to Jewish text? Enthusiastically,
I typed ‘Ballsy Women in the Bible’ but came up empty. However, my Google search for Pinchas (the Torah portion read this past Shabbat) unearthed 21,700 results for (stay with me, here) Zelophehad's five daughters - Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah and Tirzah - the wise, chutzpahdik women who (though this could be a stretch) might have inspired Hillary’s 1995 quote, “Human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights.” Zelophehad's daughters, examples of women who stood their ground (literally), raised their voices, changed laws and made the future better for generations to come. Connection made.

Now, let’s give Donald Trump equal time.

Let’s Google the Torah portion we read a few weeks back that speaks of Korach - a man the midrash describes as a privileged, exceedingly wealthy Israelite - who instigated a rebellion against Moses and the ‘establishment’ in the Wilderness. By many accounts, Korach's rhetoric and populist appeals were totally self-serving. Called the father of all quarrelers, the embodiment of demagoguery, Korach inflamed his followers’ grievances (You promised us a land of milk and honey, but now you say we’re gonna die in the wilderness?) and distorted or ignored the truth in order to scare the wits out of people and win them to his side. Korach's very name is synonymous with disharmony and conflict. The Talmud proclaims, Anyone who engages in divisiveness transgresses a divine prohibition, as it is written: And he shall not be as Korach and his company. Exactly the kind of leader one should not follow. A second connection made.

But be of good cheer. Though sources quibble over the details, Korach and his cohorts did get their cummupance.
   And the earth opened her mouth wide, and swallowed them up with their households, their tents, all of Korach's people and all the property that was at their feet.

As of this writing, there are 99 days until the 2016 Presidential election. The same frustrations, inequities, have plagued us for centuries. Between now and November 8,
do you think we’ll finally get it right?

   Despite abundance, want lodges in our midst;
   and, despite peace,
   the voice of discontent is not yet hushed in our land.
   Enable the people's representatives, wherever assembled,
   to wrestle with this harassing foe, and to conquer him.
   Rabbi Joseph Krauskopf, Philadelphia, 1892

FYI.
The unabridged story of Zelophehad's daughters
is available at Numbers 27:1 through 27:11.
No bible near your bedside?
Google it.

     Ozzie Nogg copyright 2016

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A rabbi's daughter visits Chichicastenango

7/24/2016

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Yesterday, on Shabbat,
we read in Parasha Balak the story of Balaam and his talking ass.
A talking ass? Seriously?
Sounds like black magic joo joo to me —
which we Jews are warned against
though in Pirke Avot the mouth of Balaam’s ass
is listed among the ten things created on the eve of the first Shabbat.
(Could Our Fathers be talking out of both sides of their mouths, here?)

On My Jewish Learning's website, Dr. Alan J. Avery writes, “Judaism, like most systems of religion, distinguishes between miracles — the extraordinary deeds of the true God or agents of the true God — and magic — the extraordinary deeds of false gods or their agents. The former acts are judged good and acceptable, so that a person who is able to use the power of the divine for purposes the religion deems right and appropriate is thought of as a holy man, miracle worker, or sage. By contrast, a person — usually an outsider or practitioner of a different religion — who demonstrates similar abilities is derided as a witch, demon, or fiend.”

To paraphrase Dr. Avery, though our sages warn against divination and magical practices — interpreting dreams, using magic staffs, reciting blessings and curses and referring to oracles — these practices are found in Jewish text and figure prominently as suitable behaviors of the progenitors and heroes of the Israelite nation.

Guess that means our magic is sacred. Theirs, profane.
Our tzizit more potent than their mala beads.
Our lulav less pagan than their rain stick.
Oh, dear.

To read about Our Rituals vs. Rituals of the Other,
scroll up down.
And if you're so inclined, feel free to share this site with your friends.

Stay well.
Stay safe.
Be sure to say p’tui, p’tui against ayin hara.

Ozzie

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ten things were created on the eve of the first Shabbat at twilight.
These are:
the mouth of the earth that swallowed Korach and his army;
the mouth of Miriam's well that followed Israel through the wilderness;
the mouth of the female donkey that spoke to Balaam;
the rainbow Noah saw after the Great Flood;
the manna that fed Israel in the wilderness;
the staff that Moses used to work miracles;
the shamir, the special worm used to build the Temple;
the mystical letters for the Ten Commandments that could be read from both sides;
the writing tool that Moses used;
the stone used for the Ten Commandments.
Some say also Moses’ grave and the ram of our father Abraham.
       Ethics of the Fathers: Chapter 5:6

A rabbi’s daughter visits Chichicastenango

At night they come from hills above the town. Men, women, children, their shadows smear the window of our room where we sleep, wrapped in llama skin. Flute notes hit the pane. Burros bump the wall. Dawn stands beside my bed, her light fingers on my hair. Market day is here.

The Guatemalan sun climbs eighteen cobbled steps and stops outside the doors of Santo Tomás. It puts pale toes on splintered threshold but does not cross. Inside the church is mystery, hymns, floor thick with flickering candle offerings. Embroidered fish swim across stones, through sacrificial smoke as darkness grows up the walls to join soft sounds of beating wings, attesting to the presence of a distant roof. Outside, ripe melons sweat. Mothers suckle children while fathers, like snails, carry small pine houses on their backs. Maya shamans swing censers, mumble incantations in clouds of incense.

In Jerusalem
Hebrews slaughtered goats, burned sheep
     rain blessed the barley

The Conquistadors are gone. Maya still remain in labyrinths of vendor stalls. Buy our flowers. Our kaleidoscopic carpets. Buy our machetes, chickens, woolen shawls, wooden masks of devil gods, woven hammocks, leather shoes, kettles, mango, corn, lemons, herbs, plastic beads. Buy our amulets, our legends, our replicas of Tikal ruins. Buy a statue of the goddess, Xochiquetzal. Buy a silver crucifix.

     Buy our kamiyot
against Lilith’s evil eye
buy our scarlet thread

copyright © Ozzie Nogg 2016

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With Thanks to Rabbi Judah Loew, the Rabbi of Prague

7/24/2016

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(Originally posted on July 10, 2016, but erased by mistake . . .)

This past week in America was down-right rotten.
But not a one-off.

Our nation regularly spawns racially motivated riots.
Nate Turner’s Rebellion, John Brown's raid, the 1871 Chinese massacre,
the Red Summer of 1919, Attica, Watts, South Central LA, Kent State,
Mississippi Burning, etc., etc., etc.

And now Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Dallas.

Same old same old, some said, and turned away,
while others turned to art, like the many Twitter users
(at a loss for words against the violence, the injustice)
who voiced their anger and despair by sharing poems.
Like Tired, from the late Langston Hughes, published in 1931.

I am so tired of waiting,
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two -
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.

In 1972, Madeleine L’Engle wrote in A Circle of Quiet: “We can surely no longer pretend that our children are growing up into a peaceful, secure, and civilized world. We've come to the point where it's irresponsible to try to protect them from the irrational world they will have to live in when they grow up. The children themselves haven't yet isolated themselves by selfishness and indifference; they do not fall easily into the error of despair; they are considerably braver than most grownups. Our responsibility to them is not to pretend that if we don't look, evil will go away, but to give them weapons against it.”

What, exactly, are the weapons, Madeleine? We’re plotzing to know.
But Madeleine is dead, so her answer is unavailable unless we access a wrinkle in time.

Instead, let’s copy the 16th century Rabbi Judah Lowe and build a giant super hero protector who won’t need even a BB gun or cap pistol to keep our children safe. What could it hurt? Protests, candles, prayers and moments of silence haven’t worked yet.

You’ll find the super hero blueprints, and results of his actions, below, in today’s blog. Suspension of disbelief required.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

With Thanks to Rabbi Judah Loew, the Rabbi of Prague

Ten-year old Nadia Shapiro, tired of vacuuming broken glass from the living room carpet, decided life would improve if she had a Golem. The Golem, Nadia figured, could rub out Mike McPhee (the punk), and (as a bonus) make her brilliant, popular, and prettier than Belinda Vandergelt. So Nadia chanted ancient mystical incantations, kneaded a lump of clay into a Golem and dragged him to school for Show & Tell.
The fourth-grade class, mute, stared at the shapeless hulk.

“This is my Golem,” explained Nadia. “His magic powers can protect me from bad stuff.”

“Bull shit,” said Mike McPhee from his desk in the back row where he sat making spit balls.

Nadia pointed. The Golem lumbered toward Mike McPhee, lifted him up and pinched his nose. After the air left Mike’s body, the Golem folded the remains and stuffed them into the pocket of his black overcoat, along with the rocks that had fallen from Mike’s backpack.

Belinda Vandergelt giggled nervously and, with perfect teeth, chewed on a strand of her curly blond hair. Nadia clapped twice. The Golem plodded towards Belinda, put his huge hands on her face, zapped it with zits and gave her braces.

The teacher dove under his desk. Nadia snapped her fingers.
The Golem pawed through the papers on the teacher’s desk, found the grade book, ate it and all of Nadia’s Fs.

“Like I said,” said Nadia, “my Golem is real powerful. Even when you can’t see him, he’ll still obey and protect me. And that’s my Show & Tell.” Nadia whistled. The Golem shuffled to Mike McPhee’s empty desk and plopped down. After school, Bernard Vandergelt the Third, Belinda’s golden-haired twin brother, carried Nadia’s books, the Golem close beside him.

That night, Nadia hugged the Golem and said, “Thank you, Yossele. Life is good. Time to spread goodness around.” Then Nadia chanted the ancient mystical incantations backwards, returned the Golem to a lump of clay and made a flower pot into which she planted seeds that grew grew grew mighty lak’ a rose.

Copyright © 2016 Ozzie Nogg. All rights reserved.

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On expiration dates and immortality . . .

7/10/2016

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You know those expiration dates on jars of mustard, cans of tuna, cartons of eggs?

Those dates that warn us to dump stuff no longer at peak quality?

Well, you can find a satirical YouTube video titled Tattoo Parlour that advocates tattooing “best by” dates across people’s foreheads, so we’ll know if the guy pushing his cart next to us in the grocery store is past his prime, like yogurt or cottage cheese. So we’ll know if the woman sitting next to us in shul is no longer a useful member of the congregation. The video was created by the Peterborough Council on Aging in Ontario, Canada, to advocate for the elderly, challenge how society treats people as they age, and encourage us to reframe our picture of growing older. Good luck with that . . .

Though it’s not printed on our foreheads, each of us obviously has an expiration date. Which brings me to Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli professor and the author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. In his book, Harari describes how a few serious scholars, using genetics and smart machines, are engaged in a scientific quest for eternal life by eliminating cancer, heart attack, diabetes, etc. etc. etc. The endeavor is called The Gilgamesh Project, named for the mythical Mesopotamian King Gilgamesh who tried to conquer death. According to Harari, even with genetic engineering, bionic immune systems and artificial organs, immortality is a long way off. But a-mortality — defying death from disease or age — is right around the corner. Which means in a few decades, people will never fall ill, but perish only by water, fire, sword, wild beast, famine, thirst, earthquake, plague, strangulation and stoning. Or when a 19-ton truck mows them down on the Promenade des Anglais, which I vowed not to mention but I couldn't help myself.

Oh, rats. There’s no escape.

Be it by sickness or calamity, our expiration dates will one day come due.
Meanwhile, Iet’s have waffles awash in butter for breakfast.
Syrup, too.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bird tracks in the sand on the seashore
like the handwriting of someone who jotted down
words, names, numbers and places, so he would remember.
Bird tracks in the sand at night
are still there in the daytime, though I’ve never seen
the bird that left them. That’s the way it is
with God.
Yehudi Amachai

Inspired by George’s Visit, Two Bottles of Chablis and Vol. 155 No. 4 of the National Geographic

l.

For starters, there are dinosaurs with peanut brains
who through dumb luck got stuck in tar where,
eons later,
their remains were found like scattered beads.
Then scientists restrung the bones
and put the great primordial molars in glass cases
so visitors could say WOW and wonder at the way life was
In The Beginning.
Now, as for me, what teeth I've lost so far
were bought by fairies for a dime
and I'm quite sure the fairies tossed my teeth into the trash
and any sign of them has long since disappeared.

ll.

Then take the farmer, plowing up a field.
He hits on something hard. He stoops,
his fingers probe, yield up a stone where he can see
the outline of a fabled fish,
its spine etched for eternity upon the rock.
Then crowds flock the museum for a look
at what lived in this place way back then
when water covered the north forty.
When I was small in winter
I would throw my body to the ground
swing legs and arms
leave cherub wings celestial garments on the snow.
The sun surveyed my mark upon the world
my ice-age frieze
and fallen angels wept themselves to slush.

lll.

Suppose in Africa, deep in the cliched sands of time,
some tracks turn up
and Dr. Leaky, on his haunches, hrummphs,
My hunch is we have stumbled on a trail
left by a hominid who measured four foot eight
and walked erect three point six million years ago
and from this evidence we know his name was
Australopithecus Afarensis.

Well, in my day I've run along the beach
dug heels and toes into the sand
and standing there have watched the waves erase each footprint,
leaving not a trace that I have been.

IV.

Consider, please, my problem with Pompeii.
Most peasants in Pompeii lived unassuming lives.
Plebeian husbands, humble wives
who worked and slept and woke
and by a stroke of fate were stopped dead in their tracks
by a stupendous belch.
Ordinary folk who, by their very act of dying,
(oh, I will grant you, it was flashy)
left us no denying they had lived.
Unless I’m stuck in cataclysmic glue,
to be exhumed some light-years hence by aliens from another sphere,
I fear that what Koheleth wrote is true.
My bones will vanish like the fragile grass
that grows and blows above my grave.
Good grief.

V.

My point is made.
The race for immortality is run on dead end streets
(small pun intended)
and if our hieroglyphs befuddle only bats
in undiscovered caves,
well... so it goes.
Come pour another glass, dear George.
Let’s drink to us
and all the other hoboes on the train.
We’re coming, Ozymandias!
Yet now,
before we turn the bottle upside down,
before the cooks go home,
please shine the candle full upon my face.
Preserve me with your stare
so I may bloom each summer in your garden of blue iris.

Copyright © 2016 Ozzie Nogg. All rights reserved.

Originally appeared in the April 27, 2000 edition of ARCHAEOLOGY: A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America.

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It happened at White Bear Lake, or at least that's my guess . . .

7/2/2016

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When I was six, my tap-dance teacher tossed me a silver baton and just like that I twirled it though my fingers, right hand to left hand and back again. “Well,” the teacher said, “this kid’s got major talent.” So Momma made me a drum majorette costume. Red satin.

She lined the skirt in white satin, sewed epaulets with gold stars to the shoulders of the jacket, and looped white braid with tassels across the front. The outfit included white tights (baggy in the knees), white boots, and a white cardboard shako. My brother David convinced his High School JROTC to adopt me as their mascot, and I marched with them in the 4th of July parade. Our older brother, Lewis, in his I-just-inlisted-in-the-U.S-Army-uniform, watched from the curb.

At some point, Mama wrapped the drum majorette costume in tissue paper and buried it in her cedar chest, along with a pair of black suede I. Miller pumps, a purple velour cloche and the silk lingerie she’d worn on her first honeymoon. At some point later, that cedar chest went missing in our move from Minneapolis to Omaha.
Gone. Lost. Forever lost.

As are David, buried at Arlington,
and Lewis, buried in Alzheimer’s.

Which leaves me with only the photograph and a fantasy. That somewhere a beautiful woman, size 7 shoe, dances the samba in Momma’s pumps. Then she marries the dashing Argentine polo player and has a plump, dimpled baby girl who grows up marching to her own drum majorette.

Uncle Sam had a cabin on White Bear Lake. This photograph was taken there.
My guess is the cabin's gone by now.

Uncle Sam is in the photo, but I won't tell you which one he is.
See if you can guess.

His wife, my Aunt Fanny, is in the picture, too.
So is my Aunt Maddie, my Uncle Ben, my cousins Leon and Fern,
and two women whose names I don't remember.
They got out of Poland just a couple months before,
before it was too late,
so they're new at this independence concept.
Maybe you can guess which women are the refugees
and which woman is Fanny and which one is Maddie.

My mother is in the picture and so am I.
My name back then was Dolly. I remember that for sure.
My cousin Fern still calls me Dolly.
Doll-eeeeeeeeeee.
Makes me feel like I'm three again, wearing a seersucker sun suit.

We went to the cabin on White Bear Lake a lot in the summer,
and always on July 4th.
My cousin Leon and I usually dug around in the sand,
looking for pirate treasure which I'll tell you right now we never found
so there's no need to guess yes or no on that one.

Aunt Fanny brought her home-made fried chicken to White Bear Lake picnics.
Momma brought her home-made potato salad.
She always spelled potato with an e at the end.
Potatoe.

Momma was 16 when she came to Duluth from Russia with no English and they
put her in the third grade where her 8-year old classmates already knew how to spell the names of vegetables. Momma saw the teacher print words on the blackboard like love, blue, write, shine, stone, alone, and the teacher said lots of words ended in a silent e, so that was Momma's explanation for why she spelled tomato with an e at the end, too.
Tomatoe.
Maybe the two Polish women will have the same problem.

Aunt Maddie brought her home-made deviled eggs to White Bear Lake on July 4th.
Maddie made the best deviled eggs, ever.
I never asked for the recipe while she was alive, and now it's too late.
Don't you hate it when that happens?
My guess is, yes. You hate it when that happens.

We've been invited to a picnic this July 4th and the hostess asked me to bring
(you guessed it)
deviled eggs.
I know they won't be as good as my Aunt Maddie's,
but since I'm still such a Doll-eeeeeeeeeee,
I'm guessing everyone will think they're the best deviled eggs, ever.

Poppa must have been at White Bear Lake, even though he's not in the photo.
Maybe he climbed that ladder and is up in the tree, reading.
Or maybe he took the picture.

Your guess is as good as mine.


   Ozzie Nogg 2016

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Ozzie Nogg

This is where I show and tell . . .

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