With The Commentary of the RABAM
Shoftim = Judges. Fifth parsha of Sefer Dvarim, Psookim 16:18 through 21:9.
In which Moishe teaches that there must be judges, and they that should be objective and incorruptible. Idol worship is a concern, as is a king, who must be like a judge, only more so. The Levites are held up as examples, false prophets are to be avoided, as are false witnesses, and wars test the nation. Kill a heifer.
Moishe had much on his mind.
Reading this week's Parsha, Shoiftim, left me confused and bleary eyed. So many topics to cover, so little time. True testimony. False testimony. True prophets. False prophets. Magicians. Conquest. Egla Arufa. Moishe Rabbeinu must have had one too many cappucinos that morning. I suspect he might have even been on speed, Chass V'Sholom.
Egla Arufa = The shattered heifer. As it says in psook 21:4 "ve horidu ziknei ha ir ha hiv et ha egla el nachal eitan asher lo yeaved bo ve lo yizarea ve arfu sham et ha egla ba nachal" (And the elders of the city shall bring down the heifer to a rough valley, which may neither be plowed nor sown, and shall shatter the heifer's neck in the valley).
Cappuccino = A delightful beverage (espresso coffee topped a dash of hot milk, and a layer of milk froth), with an unfortunate name that recalls a monkish brood – the Capuchin friars wore a hooded habit, of a dull brown hue.
The Capuchin monks are also known as the Franciscan order, who were placed in charge of the inquisition after the Dominicans. The Franciscans were, with the Dominicans, primary instigators of the burning of Jewish books in Paris in 1242, and several famous anti-Semites in the centuries that followed were Franciscans. The order was founded in 1209 C.E. when the rule composed by Francis of Assisi (1182 – 1226) received Papal approbation from Innocent III (born 1160 or 1161, died 1216).
But not all anti-Semites were Franciscans - it should be mentioned in this context that a converted Jew, Rabbi Shlomo Levi of Burgos, having whizzed the theology courses at the university of Paris, was made bishop of Cartagena and councilor of Castile, and promptly set about persecuting his former co-religionists with a vengeance. Another converso of note (Pablo Christiani) made trouble for the Ramban, who left his homeland as a result.
One could validly suspect that converts are likely to be seriously dysfunctional, based on these examples. Or by one’s last encounter with saffron garbed nutjobs at the airport. But I would not want to encourage that thought – Ruth was a convert, so was Ben Hei Hei, as was Judah the Ammonite on whose behalf Rabbi Joshua spoke.
Judah the Ammonite = ‘There appeared in the academy a certain Judah, an Ammonite convert, who asked “may I enter the klal?” (By which he meant ‘can I marry a Jewish girl?’)
Rabban Gamliel said “no way dude” (Meaning: ‘You don’t belong here, now piss off’).
Then Rabbi Joshua said “surely Ammon and Moab no longer dwell in their original places? Did not Sennacherib, the king of Assur, mix all the people up?” (‘Are we that bloody exclusive that we should discriminate against one who has actually chosen to stand with us?’).
To which Rabban Gamliel replied “it is prophesized that the Bnei Ammon will be restored, and look! - they have indeed been restored (to their own place)” (‘I’m telling ya, he don’t belong here!).
Rabbi Joshua then said “and there is an identical prophecy that Yisroel will also be restored – but that has not happened! All these prophecies are pure speculation, including that mishegoss about the Ammonites” (Idiot! Weren’t you listening?!? He’s one of us now!’).
After listening to this debate, the assembled scholars permitted Judah to enter the klal.’
The prophecy that Yisroel will be restored = In reference to the lost tribes, exiled beyond the Sabbath river, who will return at the end of time when Yisroel is restored. Yisroel is the Northern Kingdom, which was severely whacked, and its people dispersed. But note that this dispute has to do with the status of converts, with Rabban Gamliel holding that the convert’s previous group identity is determinative, while Rabbi Joshua holds that in converting, the Ger has become as much a Jew as other Jews (as Abraham and Sarah were converts, and as the entire nation became at Sinai, and like many ‘natives’ after the return from Bavel). Chazal agree with Rabbi Joshua.
Sabbath River = The river Sambatyon, which is according to legend beyond the backside of Mesopotamia; the exact distance beyond increases with each telling – Caucasus, further Persia, Bactria, Transoxiana, Takla Makan, Outer Buggery Mongolia. During the week the Sambatyon is a furiously rushing torrent that none may cross, but it slackens on the Sabbath, when the observant will of course not travel. Mythic, of course, but it highlights the fervent hope that those who were dispersed will yet maintain their ancient link to Yisroel, and eventually be restored to us.
Pope Innocent II = a notorious Anti-Semite and warmonger, who was made pontiff at age thirty seven, and ruled thereafter for another eighteen fun-filled years. Among other acts, he authorized the Crusade against the Albigensians in 1210 (from which we learn the phrase ‘kill them all, G-d will know his own’ – Neca eos omnes! Deus suos agnoset!). It is estimated that over one hundred thousand heretics were slaughtered. Truly a charming affirmation of faith.
At the fourth Lateran council, held a year before he snuffed it, it was decided that “Jews and Muslims, of either gender, in all Christian lands, and for all time, shall be marked off from the public by their clothing”. At that same council the opinion was voiced that Jews should not be wiped out completely, as otherwise Christians might forget where they got their scriptures.
Do not confuse him with Pope Innocent IV (d. 1254), who spoke out against the blood-libel, and tried to protect the Jews.
Speed = An addictive stimulant, methamphetamine, also called MDA, use of which damages brain cells and neuron cell endings, affecting one’s response to stimuli. Long term usage eventually causes symptoms resembling Parkinsonism, habitual use leads to shakes, the crawlies, prolixity, and violent mood swings. It was used in WWII by pilots on long flights, and in the last months of the war by slave workers in German factories. For a while (1950’s and 60’s) mild versions were sold over the counter in the U.S. as diet pills, which explains why the June Cleavers of America were trim, efficient, and stark raving gaga. Stick to Cappuccino.
Interestingly, in the Parsha, Moishe Rabbeinu tells us that a defendant can be convicted of a crime through the testimony of either two or three witnesses. But the Parsha tells us this law in two separate places. Voos iz givehn a deja vu?
According to a mishna in Yuma, Moishe may have been showing signs of early Altzheimers.
Mishna in Yuma = A discursus in Meseches Yuma (day), also called Kippurim (atonements), because it deals with rules for Yom Kippur. Yuma is the fifth mesechta of eleven mesechtos in seder Moed (the order of festivals), which is the second of the six sedarim in the Talmud, coming after Zeraim (seeds).
Mesechta = Tractate (singular). Plural is Mesechtos. (Mesechtes, meseches = Tractate of.)
Sedarim = Orders; singular is seider.
But according to a gemarra in Yevamois, the first mention of the rule refers to legal testimony and the judicial system. But the second mention of the rule is brought down by the Toirah to teach us something about relationships: While marital relations between two people, a husband and a wife, are sanctified in the eyes of the Aimishteh, He doesn't mind if every once in a while you bring in a third partner to "spice up the cholent."
Yevamois = Levirate marriages; the first mesechta in seder Nashim (the order of women), which is the third seder of the Talmud. Levirate marriages allow the line of a man who died before having an heir to be perpetuated, as his death imposes an obligation on his brother to marry the widow – the son carries forth the name of the deceased. We made mention of this last week, in the mishegoss about Tamar, whose second husband Oinan died of overindulging in self-abuse (see, it’s dangerous - you needed a doctor to tell you that?).
Cholent = Tsholnt: chaud-lent (mediaeval French: slow heat). A compound of meat, vegetables, and lentils rather similar to Dhansak, and just as dangerous. According to reliable reports, cholent may contribute to heart disease, arterial sclerosis, obesity, erectile dysfunction, and depression, and may actually have caused the demise of more Jews than anything else in history.
As it is prepared by placing the casserole in a dying oven on Friday before shkiya, it is ready to eat on Saturday around midday. Hence it is a much favoured shabbes luncheon. But perhaps you should try beid b’hamam instead? Or even some tasty Cassoulet?
Cholent is, as discussed in meseches Kilayim (vessels), quite similar to what Yakov fed Esav, which is described in Sefer Bereishis, Parshas Toldos, psook 25:29 “Va yazed Yakov nazid, va yavo Esav min ha sade ve hu ayef” (And Jacob seethed a pottage, and Esau, coming from the field, and being faint), psook 25:30 “va yomer Esav el Yakov, haleiteni na min ha adom, ha adom haze ki ayef anochi - al ken kara shemo Edom (and Esau said to Jacob ‘let me, I beg of you, have some of this red red pottage, for I am faint – wherefore would he be called Edom). Yakov wheezled Esav’s birthright out of him in return for some beandip. A metzia.
Edom, it should be noted, means redness, as ‘ha adom ha adom’ points to an intense red. These both derive from adama, earth (think of red clay), whence Adam, the first man, who was made of clay. As in our day only a goilem is.
Goilem = A being without a will of it’s own, created to perform the wishes of it’s master; politician. The cognate in Arabic (gulam) means slave.
Once Esav recovered from the worst indigestion he had ever experienced, he realized that he had been had. Since then, Esav has looked upon Yakov with disfavour. But we are more fortunate – we have an entire row of stomach medicines at Walgreen’s; everything from pink mucky stuff for acid, purple pills for reflux, green once-a-days, E-Z Pepsid, various fruit-flavoured chalk-o-tabs for bile and gas, to complex chemical cocktails which either tighten you up or loosen you down, plus fibrous substances for regularity, and clay & pectin blends for firmness and smooth passage. But, of course, you have to wait. The end of shabbes brings as much joy as the beginning did, and it ain’t just the bsomim.
Dhansak = A Parsee dish of mixed lentils, meat (mutton), red pumpkin, kasoori methi (fenugreek leaf), and spices, slow stewed, and served with browned rice and potato croquettes or chicken kababs (marghi ni pattice), often on the weekend. After which you can only nap.
Busy Bee (nom de guerre of the journalist, editor, and food-meyven Behram Contractor, himself a Parsee), often waxed eloquent in his columns for The Afternoon Despatch & Courier about this quintessential Parsee dish.
In his column on August 23, 1991 Busy Bee lamented that "the best restaurants for dhansak are closed. Café Health off Meadows Streets, where old waiters moved about in waist-coats and gave brass finger-bowls at the end of the meal; (--) Patuck next door, and Victory Stall on Apollo Bunder..."
Excellent dhansak may be had at the Ripon club, opposite Bombay University, and at CCI and Royal Yacht Club – but these are private clubs, and one must be invited.
So fond are Parsees of their Dhansak, that they are nicknamed Dhansakiyas, just like Sindhis have become ‘Papad-khor’.
Toisfois comments on this that the second reference to two or three witnesses is juxtaposed to the rules of conquest for a reason. In the section immediately following the second mention of the rule, the Toirah tells us that when you conquer a foreign land, you should slay all the males, but keep the women and children for yourselves. Says Toisfois, this comes to teach us that when you do have a third person join you in your marital relations, the Toirah suggests she be a hot shiksa. And the Toirah teaches us this within the context of discussing military conquest so we will know that a little Bondage and Discipline is okay.
Toisfois = The Tosafists; the mediaeval Talmud and Toirah commentators from Northern France and the Rhineland.
‘Slay all the males but keep the women and children’ = Surely you haven’t forgotten the wars against Midian and Moab? We discussed these not too long ago. Go back and reread your e-mail drashim from Y.C.E. again, and dwell on the tasty bits.
Especially that bit with the spear shoved through the man and the woman. Keep in mind that the sin of the nasty one who made out with the Midianite slut at the tent was not the shiksa, but where he took her – both in the public eye, and in the sanctified place. Toisfois suggests that you exercise discretion, and at the very least draw the curtains. Nastiness should be kept private. It should definitely not become a shanda fur di Goyim (even when it depends upon the Goyim). Trust me – the Goyim can make their own shandas.
The Sfas Emes, citing his heilige grandfather the Chiddushei HaRim, takes the phrase which begins our parsha – “Shoftim ve shotrim titeinu-lecha, be chol sheariteicha, asher HaShem nosein lach” (Judges and officers shall you appoint, in all the gateways (cities) which the Lord has given you), and reads into this a command to guard the gates to our awareness and monitor our senses, so that we do not see what we should not see, nor hear what we should not hear.
Our behaviour may at times demand discretion, but by the same token people should mind their own damn’ business. Thus we shall neither engage in lashon hara, nor be tempted by the actions of our fellows.
SFAS EMES = The Lips of Truth. Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Leib Ben Avraham Mordechai Alter (1847 – 1905), second Rebbe of Ger, called Sfas Emes after his most famous book. Aryeh Leib was a brilliant child, and when orphaned by the death of his father, was raised and taught by his grandfather (the first Rebbe of Ger), as is reflected in his commentaries, which often start with a thought from the Chiddushei HaRim. His son, the Emrei Emes, escaped from the Nazis and rebuilt Gerrer Chasidus in Eretz Yisroel, where his descendants continue the tradition of their ancestor.
Chiddushei HaRim = Rabbi Yitzhak “Feige” Meir Rothenburg Alter (1799 – 1866), the first Rebbe of Ger, who became a disciple of the Seraf of Kotsk (Rav Menachem Mendel of Kotsk, 1787 – 1859) while still very young. A descendant of Rashi and King David.
Chiddush = Innovation.
The RIF, however, holds, that a little S and M may be in order as well, as long as it does not lead to bloodshed, which would instantly raise up a chashash of Nidah and spoil all the fun, Chass V'Sholom.
RIF = Rabbi Yitzhok AlFezzi (1013 – 1103), a bakante scholar who lived most of his life in Fez, hence the regio-nymic (Al-Fezzi = man from Fez). His work is often printed in the back of the Gemarra, along with the ROSH (Rabbi Asher Ben Yechiel, 1250 - 1328,a student of the Maharam (Rabbi Meir Ben Baruch of Rothenburg, 1215 – 1293) who fled to Spain to escape the bloodletting in Germany) and the RAN (Rabbeinu Nisim ben Rav Reuven Girondi, born early fourteenth century, nifter 1380). The RAN, the RIF, and the ROSH can be considered the Kingston Trio of Halacha.
Now note that also named after the city of Fez is a very nice hat formerly worn from the Maghreb in the west, to Bukhara and Khorasan in the utter east. When, scarcely two centuries ago, it was first introduced as the official headgear of the Ottoman empire (Dawlat-e Aliya-e Usmaniya, extant from 1281 to 1923), it caused riots – it was too modern, too un-Islamic, too European.
When Mustafa Kemal Attaturk (1881 – 1938) outlawed the fez in favour of fedoras and homburgs in 1925, riots broke out – too modern, too un-Islamic, too European.
Arab nationalists disfavoured it also, as in their contrarian ignorance they considered it a foreign imposition and a symbol of loyalty to defunct rulers. Sadly, it is now worn only by some Moroccans, reactionary geezers, and shriners.
However, it has great dignity, and is a stylish accessory that adds stature and deftishkeit to any man – one should not even think of going to a coffee house or boite in the kasbah without it. Nitz’vo zogt ‘shtoltz’, vi a FEZ shtoltz zogt! Und oich, ba emmes, yashrusdikeit!
And, probably more than anything else, it separates the civilized metropolitan man from the camel-humping brigand of the sandy wastes. It is a mechaye to wear a fez.
Chashash of Nidah = A suspicion of Nidah.
Chashash = Suspicion, apprehension. An idea that there might be. From Ivrit.
Nidah = A condition characterized by a flow of blood from the feminine reproductive region, which in its full blown stages is easily discerned, but as it eases it may be overlooked, which necessitates bedikah with a white cloth to spot spots, clots, or drops within the ervuh. During this entire period a certain distance needs to be maintained from the woman in question, as she may be like a cask of powder, that the slightest spark may cause to explode. Some men spend two weeks of every month in a state of timorous fear, others develop a taste for single malts and solitude. Marriage is a blessed state.
Bedikah = To search, to search for, investigate.
Cask of powder = If your aishes chayil is a Cantonese woman, you’re in luck – just make sure she gets all the lobster she needs, and no one gets hurt.
Of course, then you’ll have another problem: chashash of shiksa.
However, the Bais Yoiseph holds that the entire gemarrah of Yevamois must have been written when the Amoraim were having a "bad day," and that Toisfois and the RIF were too busy thinking with their Bris Milahs.
Bais Yoiseph = House of Josef; a monumental compendium of Halacha by Rabbi Yoisef Karo (Toledo 1488 – Safed 1575). The book was written while Rabbi Yoisef lived in Turkey, and is based on Rabbi Yakov Ben Asher’s Arba Turim (The Four Rows). It is far more be’iyun than the bavuste Shulchan Aruch (Set Table), which he wrote later as a more easily referenced guide to Halacha – Halacha for Dummies. Both are gevaldik.
The Bais Yoiseph holds that the reason the Toirah bother to repeat itself on witnesses is to warn us that if we hire false witnesses to testify in our favor during a tax fraud hearing, we should always hire an extra witness, just in case one of the witnesses turns states evidence. He brings as proof the whole, strange halacha of the Egla Arufa.
As the Toirah states, if an unidentified dead body is found between two towns, and a murderer is not identified, the elders of the towns must sacrifice a heifer as part of a proclamation of the towns' innocence. According to the Bais Yoiseph, there is clearly a situation involving a cover up involved here, and the Toirah is encouraging you to have some false witnesses up your sleeve willing to testify against some unwitting scapegoat.
Proclamation of the towns’ innocence = As it says in Psook 21:6 and 7 “Ve chol ziknei ha ir ha hiv ha kerovim el hechalal yirchatzu et yedeihem al ha egla ha arufa va nachal” (and all geezers of the city closest to the stiff shall wash their hands of the heifer whose neck was snapped in the ravine), “ve anu ve amru ‘yadeinu lo shafchu, shafchu et ha dam ha ze, ve eineinu lo ra’u’” and they shall speak and say ‘our hands did not shed his blood, and our eyes have not seen it’). Here we see the washing of hands as a symbolic abjuration of any and all responsibility in the matter, lent formal weight and point through the relinquishment of a fine calf, showing how serious is the attestation.
‘Hey, we didn’t do it; will ya look at this heifer!’
Damn’ hippies.
But the Hesech Hadaas (B. 1280 -- D. ?) states that the Egla Arufa has no link whatsoever to anything else in the Parsha. Indeed, he holds that the Egla Arufa really belongs in Shmois, following the drowning of the Egyptian Army in the sea. He holds that the Egla Arufa symbolizes the random victimhood that characterizes human existence. The Jews in Egypt. The Egyptians in the sea. Klal Yisroel. Amalek. Midian. Basically, all of humanity. According to him, the Egla Arufa is a reminder that life is one big crap shoot. One day you are lying on the beach with a beautiful woman at your side. The next day you are stuck in some Bais Medrish studying gemarra with a bearded guy named Laizer who hasn't quite figured out how to use deoderant and who showers once a week whether he needs to or not.
Hesech Hadaas = Absent mindedness, the brother to Yishuv Hadaas (calm reflection).
Shmois = Names. One of five books or sefers, which are collectively known as the Torah, being an anthology of ancient texts detailing the giving of the law, in narrative form, with details about a covenant and exit from a place know as Egypt by a tribe descended from a wandering Aramean, and lead by a man of uncertain ancestry, who was possibly connected to royalty. You’ve heard of it?
‘Drowning of the Egyptian Army in the sea’ = As described in Sefer Shmois, Parshas Beshalach (When he let go, so named after the first sentence: “Va yehi be shalach Parao et ha am” – And when having let go, by Pharaoh, the people. Yes I know, horrible syntax, but hey, it’s Hebrew, the lashoin kadoish of a goi kadoish, so live with it).
Anyhow, psookim 14:27 and 28 detail the drowning of the Egyptians (“…va yena’er Adonai et Mitzrayim be toch ha yam, va yashuvu ha mayim, va yechasu at ha rechev ve et ha parashim, le chol cheyil Parao ha ba im achareihem ba yam, lo nishar bahem ad echad” – And the Aimishteh overthrew the Egyptians in the centre of the sea, and the waters returned, covering the chariots and cavaliers, even the whole swarm that had followed Pharaoh into the sea, so that not even one remained).
Following the destruction of Gamel Abdel Nasser’s army, the Bnei Yisroel engage in what can only be called gleeful and unseemly gloating; it is very lyrical, you really should reread it (Psookim 15:1 through 15:19), but in short it says neener neener neener. Ha Shirat Ha Schadenfreudos.
Amalek = We are commanded to always remember what Amalek did to us, while causing his name to be utterly forgotten. Try it. The instruction to remember that name is as contradictory a mitzvah as the appointment of a hereditary monarch by a tribal republic.
Amalek divided us in our unity, a monarch unites us in utter division. Meshuges!
The third paramount commandment we are charged with, upon entering the land, is that we should build the Beis HaMikdash. Nu, this at least makes sense. It is said that the Beis HaMikdash unites the souls of all Jews (obviously against the heresies of the Northerners, but still).
Now also note, in relation to the single place of worship, and its altar of multiple stones, that only with the return of the Bnei Yisroel to the land promised to the descendants of Avraham do the Jews finally become fully differentiated souls, whereas before they were as one, hard to believe thought that may be.
How do we know this? When Yakov went down to Mitzrayim, he went with seventy soul (nefesh – singular, rather than the plural nefashois). As it says in Sefer Bereishis, Parshas Vayigash (and he came near), psook 46:27 “...kol ha nefesh le beit Yakov haba’a Mitzrayim shivim” (All the SOUL of the house of Jacob, that descended to Egypt, was seventy).
When the Bnei Yisroel return up from Egypt, they are told to construct altars of multiple stones, rather than in any way using single stone pillars (matsevois). We read in Kings that Eliyahu takes twelve stones, one for each of the twelve tribes, signifying the communal aspect of Yisroel’s relation with the Aimishteh, in the same way that the plural, nefashois, acknowledges the individualities of the descendants of Yakov returning to the land promised to them.
There is also testimony in this to a profound change, in the altar of multiple stones. Whereas the idolaters worshipped individually (hence the single stone matseva) to a multitude of alleged deities, the Bnei Yisroel are a community consecrated in monotheism, united therein as the stones of their altar. This is hammered home in the business about there being only one altar, one interface for the divine presence and the am Yisroel, one Beis HaMikdash.
Our neshomois are separate, yet are as one.
Midian = A territory south-east of the Jordan river. Ammon was opposite the Jordan river, Moab south of Ammon, facing the dead sea, Edom below that, and Midian southernmost, along the gulf of Aqaba, although it is assumed that part of their territory extended into the Sinai peninsula. It is a boring place, except for camels.
Midian descended from Avraham through his concubine Keturah, as described in Sefer Bereishis, Parshas Chayei Sarah (Life of Sarah), Psookim 25:1 and 2 “Vayosef Avraham v’yikach ashi ushema Keturah (And Abraham took yet ANOTHER wife, whose name was Keturah), va teled lo et Zimran, ve et Yakshan, ve et Medan, ve et Midyan, ve et Yishbak, ve et Shuach (and she bore him Zimran, and Yakshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Yishbak, and Shuah). Now bear in mind that this fecund interim takes place THREE ENTIRE GENERATIONS after Yishmael and Yitzhok were born – was he determined to make his seed as numerous as the stars and the grains of sand all by himself? He was well into his second century at this point. He could have rested.
Mount Sinai, also called Mount Horeb, was located in Midian – this is were Moishe had the job-interview with the burning bush (fourth and fifth aliyos, Parshas Shmois). Connections, connections (a high-placed father-in-law), myeh, though forty years afterwards he may have no longer wished to be reminded of the many favours some guy named Yisro did him.
I am reminded of a maiseh shehoyo. Many years ago I was traveling to China with my rebbe, the NPOJHARTHA. We were on a mission to determine if the messages in fortune cookies were written by a wise elder Kabbalist residing in inner Mongolia, or a seventeen year old complete ignoramus. As we traveled though the wilds of Lanzhou Province, we were approached by the army of the Communists, in the midst of their war against the Nationalist army. "Fight on our behalf, or die" we were told, the muzzles of rifles pointed at our faces. I wanted to resist, but was reassured by my Rebbe that everything would turn out alright.
Lanzhou = A large metropolis in China, in Gansu province, one of the most miserable and desperately poor regions of China. Desolate, arid, and far from civilization.
After the Chinese Communists completed the Long March (breaking out from the blockaded Jiangxi Soviet October 16, 1934, riding north, through the dark forest of Ewing, accompanied by their favourite minstrels, to the cave of Caer-Bannog, wherein, carved in mystic runes upon the very living rock, are the last words of Ulfin Bedweer of Reggit (!), …..I mean, finally reaching Yenan in the autumn of 1935), they established a Soviet in north-western China, incorporating parts of Gansu, Szechuan, and ShaanXi, from which they emerged during the later years of World War Two to harass the Nationalists and the Japanese.
Gansu and Shaanxi both lead out to Mongolia, and if one can resist the invitations and temptation to use heroin, which is widely available, one will soon realize that life in Gansu really has nothing at all to offer. Absolutely nothing. Diddly. The crater-pocked on-ramp of the ancient silk-road. Some dessicated yak dung half covered by yellow sand blowing in from the desert, perhaps, or the dubious entertainment of watching skeletal mongrels snarling hungrily over the mangy corpse of one of their companions. Other than that, bupkes.
And camels.
One evening, as the troops sat around the campfire drinking homemade slivovitz and eating General Tso's cocker spaniel, NPOJHARTHA began a niggun. He sang slowly at first, and more loudly as the Communist troops learned the tune and joined in. After 45 minutes, NPOJHARTHA and I went to the side to daven Maariv.
General Tso’s cocker spaniel = Tso Gong Gou Tze. A tale is told of an American Jewish reporter in Chungqing during the war, who was invited by Chou En-Lai (1898 – 1976) to a celebratory dinner. Now bear in mind that decent food was hard to get at that time, let alone food fit for a feast.
But Chou En-Lai was nothing if not a macher, and manages to put on an impressive spread. Including, as main course, a lovely roast piglet. The reporter, looking aghast, explains that this is problematic – he cannot eat pig. Everybody looks embarrassed, until Chou En-Lai calmly explains that in China things look different, and the climate can affect one’s eyes - in China, at this time, this is a duck. And in Lanzhou, at that time, that was definitely a chicken.
Niggun = A melody, which need not have actual words. What words it does have often serve only to carry the tune, though at times the tune may be recognizable as a cantorial melody or prayer.
"Bam, bam, biddi biddi bam bam. Bam, bam, biddi biddi bam. Bam. ..."
Daven Maariv = The prayer at eventide.
Suddenly the Nationalist forces launched a surprise attack against our comrades. But the spirit of Chairman Mao was upon us, and we repelled the capitalist dogs, routing them to the last man.
Nationalist forces = The armies of Chiang Jie-Shir (Chiang Kai-Shek), and his allies of convenience, including the Young Marshal, warlord Chang Hsueh-Liang, who was later involved in the Xian incident (December 12th, 1936).
Chairman Mao = Mao ZeDung (Mao Tse-Tung, 1893 – 1976), the biggest mass murderer in history. A native of Hunan.
After the fighting subsided, NPOJHARTHA and I were imprisoned for cowardice, since we davened in our bunker throughout the battle. I asked NPOJHARTHA, "Why does the Aimishteh punish us so? We were davening, fulfilling His commandments, yet we are forced to suffer."
Forced to suffer = Because in China, a commandment looks a lot like a duck.
"Fool!" NPOJHARTHA responded. "Do you think He hears our prayers? We are in the middle of freaking nowhere, surrounded by a billion pagans. What do you think he has, radar?"
Radar = Radio Angle Detection And Ranging. Using radio waves to echo-locate large objects, such as ships and aeroplanes. Based on the work of Heinrich Hertz, Christian Huellsmeyer, and other Germans at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, radar did not become practical until Nicola Tesla (truly a gadol ha dor if there ever was one) formulated principles regarding frequencies and power levels.
Radar as such was invented by Young and Taylor at the Naval Research Lab in the U.S., but was not utilized until the height of World War Two. So the chances of there actually being radar in Lanzhou province during the mid-thirties, when the Chinese Nationalists and Communists were killing each other, was proportionately less than slim. As a sage would have known.
Just as we were randomly punished, so too the Egla Arufa is a response to a random crime against an anonymous victim. Not so that the Aimishteh is mollified, but so that we can feel a little less guilty after rummaging through the dead man's pockets and stealing his wallet and personal effects.
Ah Gutten Shabbos, You Minuval.
