28 October 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 153. (Olitzky 2005): Jewish Ritual

Letter from Lhasa, number 153. (Olitzky 2005): Jewish Ritual

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Rabbi Olitzky, K. M., and Rabbi D. Judson, Jewish Ritual. A Brief Introduction for Christians, Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, VT, USA, 2005.

(Olitzky 2005).

Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky

Rabbi Daniel Judson

“According to a familiar maxim, Christians can walk into a synagogue and affirm just about everything that is said, because the prayers primary praise and thank God, but Jews cannot walk into a Christian church and affirm any of what is said, because of the extent that Christian prayers invoke Jesus as Deity. While this may be substantially true, you can still find parallel themes in Jewish and Christian prayer services.” (Olitzky 2005, p. 74)

This booklet, of the dimension of the order of 100 pages, is a comparative exposition on Judaism and Christianity. From a religious point of view, Christianity is built on Judaism. For some mysterious reason, everybody (apparently, also this book’s authors) seems to prefer to insist in the fiction that Yeshua is not a tale of the post-70 Judaism, which became power’s tool and matter. Peculiarity of Judaism is that it remained for millennia, and perhaps it is continuing to be, religion and ideology of self-managed communities.

Rabbi Olitzky, K. M., and Rabbi D. Judson, Jewish Ritual. A Brief Introduction for Christians, Jewish Lights Publishing, Woodstock, VT, USA, 2005.

Letter from Lhasa, number 152. (Solomon 2009): The Talmud. A Selection

Letter from Lhasa, number 152. (Solomon 2009): The Talmud. A Selection

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

[editor] Solomon, N., The Talmud. A Selection, Penguin Classics, 2009.

(Solomon 2009).

Norman Solomon

Even if it is only a selection and only in English, it is a work of a bit less than 900 pages, permitting a rapid, although serious, approach to the Talmud.

In addition to the Talmud and to its dialectical and/or dialogical evaluation of different “legal” cases, one may appreciate the editor’s introduction and his commentaries and notes.

So, one has less and, at the same time, more than a simple “rough” original Talmud.

[editor] Solomon, N., The Talmud. A Selection, Penguin Classics, 2009.

26 October 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 151. (Idel 2007): Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism

Letter from Lhasa, number 151. (Idel 2007): Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Idel, M., Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism, continuum, 2007.

(Idel 2007).

Moshe Idel

It is a book on sonship, being son of G-d. It drives through centuries, millennia and cultures.

“Freud characterized Judaism as the religion of the Father and Christianity, its offspring, as the religion of the Son.” (Idel 2007, p. 599)

“There is no doubt that Enoch [[ben Yared]] constitutes a major example of the search for a cooperative apotheosis that does not fit the psychoanalytical agonic narratives, which are indeed much closer the Gnostic types of sonship.” (Idel 2007, p. 622)

A general observation: Judaism has strange inferiority complexes relatively to its offspring. For example, Christianity is a political phenomenon, so to be evaluated historically and sociologically. From an ideological point of view, ALL the works later used for the building of the power’s/”government” “Christianity” are Jewish works produced from Jews for different purposes, after the destruction of the Second Temple. Even “Christian” theology is Jewish, in its foundations. The first “Christian” theologians are Jews.

Anyway, this book is not about that. It is a deep, vast and cultured study on what declared it its title.

Idel, M., Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism, continuum, 2007.

Letter from Lhasa, number 150. (Schachter-Shalomi 2005): Jewish with Feeling

Letter from Lhasa, number 150. (Schachter-Shalomi 2005): Jewish with Feeling

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Schachter-Shalomi, Z., with J. Segel, Jewish with Feeling. A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice, Riverhead Books, 2005.

(Schachter-Shalomi 2005).

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi,

Joel Segel

This is a book talking of G-d, to G-d and to you.

Schachter-Shalomi, Z., with J. Segel, Jewish with Feeling. A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Practice, Riverhead Books, 2005.

25 October 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 149. (Schachter-Shalomi 1995): From Age-ing to Sage-ing

Letter from Lhasa, number 149. (Schachter-Shalomi 1995): From Age-ing to Sage-ing

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Schachter-Shalomi, Z., and R. S. Miller, From Age-ing to Sage-ing. A Profound New Vision of Growing Older, Warner Books, New York, NY, USA, 1995.

(Schachter-Shalomi 1995).

Zalman Schachter-Shalomi,

Ronald S. Miller

What is sage-ing? It is “a process that enables older people to become spiritually radiant, physically vital, and socially responsible “elders of the tribe.””

(Schachter-Shalomi 1995, p. 5).

“Throughout most of our lives, we knew what was expected of us.” (Schachter-Shalomi 1995, p. 27). If it is a nonsense to live in such a way, it is also a nonsense to find “genial” solutions for when people are too old. When people are too old, they are already irreversibly corrupted from when there were younger.

“From childhood to late adulthood, we’re like railroad trains that follow highly regular stretches of track to predictable destinations. Then, as elderhood approaches, we reach the end of the line, only to discover that management hasn’t had the foresight to lay any more track.” (Schachter-Shalomi 1995, p. 31). It is very Americanish to pretend to invent some magic solution.

Is sageing the answer to ageing? If it were imprudence, youngishism, childishism?! “Sages” are so seriously self-conceited and paranoid!

It may be that it be just a question of expectations. It seems a book wanting to convince people of something while I [a specific reader] would have expected something else from a rabbi about the question, or perhaps it is the same question “ageing and sageing” not to be a real question in my opinion. It seemed to me a recipes’ book, evidently not in consonance with my feelings when I dealt [now] with this book.

It is only a free comment. I do not give advices about reading or not reading books.

Schachter-Shalomi, Z., and R. S. Miller, From Age-ing to Sage-ing. A Profound New Vision of Growing Older, Warner Books, New York, NY, USA, 1995.

Letter from Lhasa, number 148. (Van Overtveldt 2008): Bernanke’s Test

Letter from Lhasa, number 148. (Van Overtveldt 2008): Bernanke’s Test

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Van Overtveldt, J., Bernanke’s Test. Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and the Drama of the Central Banker, Agate, Chicago, USA, 2008.

(Van Overtveldt 2008).

Johan Van Overtveldt

It is an interesting non-technical book about also some technicalities of central bankers.

Central banks and bankers must be sanctified. So, such books, anyway valuable and useful, must be produced.

C’est la vie!

Van Overtveldt, J., Bernanke’s Test. Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and the Drama of the Central Banker, Agate, Chicago, USA, 2008.

18 October 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 147. (Neusner 2004a): Making God’s Word Work

Letter from Lhasa, number 147. (Neusner 2004a): Making God’s Word Work

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Neusner, J., Making God’s Word Work. A Guide to the Mishnah, continuum, 2004.

(Neusner 2004a).

Jacob Neusner

The Mishnah is a collection of rabbinic traditions written down at the beginning of the III century CE.

“The Mishnah is the crown jewel of Rabbinic Judaism in its formative age, the first six centuries of the Common Era.” (Neusner 2004a, p. 11)

“In the law of the Mishnah, Israel does not constitute an ethnic group, a nation or people defined by culture or measured by this-worldly matters of practical consequence. Status as an Israelite, part of “Israel”, comes about by reason of the Torah, Israel forms the holy community of those destined for life eternal, and that constitutes not an ethnic group, nation, or people, but a social entity that is sui generis.” (Neusner 2004a, p. 82)

“The Mishnah knows Israel as the social order that bears moral obligations to God. Corporate Israel alone transcends the grave, and that is for the community and the individual: Israel is eternal. Accordingly, corporate Israel, addressed as a collectivity in the plural “you”, is uniquely subject to divine imperatives. Belonging to Israel bears uniform consequences for each Israelite (“All Israelites...”), no matter how they differ as individuals.” (Neusner 2004a, p. 87)

“The law of the Mishnah provides for the condition of corporate Israel as a moral entity with no counterpart in the rest of humanity. Surprisingly, what marks Israel in community as distinct is that Israel as corporate community has sinned all together and all at once.” (Neusner 2004a, p. 88)

“Everyone is Israel, and everyone is equal, responsible to both God and the corporate community of Israel.” (Neusner 2004a, p. 142)

The Mishnah forms a pastiche of received laws, customs, and exegeses. Much of the data from the Mishnah derive from Scripture; some originate in law or custom established for millennia in the ancient Near East, even from Sumerian and Akkadian times; some come from a common heritage of Israelite custom-facts of law shared with the Qumran writings, for instance. But these inherited facts constitute part of the raw materials, inert and awaiting a shape and a position dictated by the Mishnah itself. What is new in the Mishnah is the Mishnah: the formation of a comprehensive, coherent system and a cogent structure that lack all precedent in prior Israelite times and circumstances and circles.” (Neusner 2004a, p. 349-350)

“Three principal documents form the exegetical continuation of the Mishnah: (1) the Tosefta (ca. 300 C.E.), (2) the Talmud of the Land of Israel (also called the Yerushalmi, ca. 400 C.E.), and (3) the Talmud of Babylonia (also called the Bavli, ca. 600 C.E.). All three depend on structure and order on the Mishnah. Each establishes its independence of the Mishnah as well.” (Neusner 2004a, p. 372)

The facsimile reproductions of various materials may be found here:

http://jnul.huji.ac.il/dl/talmud/index.htm

Neusner, J., Making God’s Word Work. A Guide to the Mishnah, continuum, 2004.

Letter from Lhasa, number 146. (Neusner 2004b): Understanding the Talmud

Letter from Lhasa, number 146. (Neusner 2004b): Understanding the Talmud

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Neusner, J., Understanding the Talmud. A Dialogic Approach, Ktav Publishing House, Jersey City, NJ, USA, 2004.

(Neusner 2004b).

Jacob Neusner

We are here in the field of the oral law. The written law is Torah. The oral law was finally written down. The Talmud, actually the Babylonian [Bavli] Talmud alias Bavli, is a commentary to the Mishnah. The Mishnah is a collection of rabbinic traditions written down at the beginning of the III century CE.

The effort of (Neusner 2004b) is to present the Talmud as a coherent and complete treatise of Jewish law. Surely, reflecting on the Talmud is an intellectual exercise to be performed studying the Talmud in Hebrew.

“The Talmud, a.k.a., the Gemara, is a protracted, analytical explanation and expansion of the Mishnah. (...) The Talmud is composed of two elements, therefore: a passage of the Mishnah, followed by a long discussion of that Mishnah-passage. Hence, the Talmud is (1) the Mishnah and (2) the Gemara, the Talmudic commentary to, explanation of, the Mishnah. (...) In general, the Mishnah is written in declarative and flowing Hebrew, the Gemara or Talmud in allusive, abbreviated, and elliptical Aramaic; the law is given in straight-forward sentences, the analysis of the law in the form of brief notes, by which, with experience and great commentaries to the Talmud, we reconstruct the analytical thought-problems set forth by the geniuses of the Talmud proper.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 42)

There is a key element of this dualism, element which is not only stylistic: “For the Mishnah “layer” has been shown to be uniform, while the Talmud “layer” is not demonstrably so.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 43).

“The Mishnah permits us at the outset to gain perspective on the character of the Talmud. For the Mishnah does exhibit a remarkable unity of literary and redactional traits. By the standard the Talmud presents none. The Mishnah’s sentences are patterned and uniform and set forth in groups of three or five. The Mishnah’s sentences use recurrent clichés, fixed expressions to signal the traits of argument at hand, but the Talmud’s sentences and paragraphs follow no disciplined protocol of the kind that governs in the Mishnah.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 44).

From that, it is easily deduced that: “[...] in the end the sages who formulated the Mishnah did the work together in a single, if indeterminate, span of time, not over long centuries and isolated from one another. The Talmud exhibits different traits, which then suggest a different formative history altogether.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 46).

“When we master Talmudic modes of learning, we acquaint our minds with a way of asking questions, a way of analyzing, a way of searching. The Mishnah speaks thoughtfully about the world. Talmud teaches us how to think about the Mishnah and about the world. The Mishnah searches out the reason and the order of the world. Talmud makes explicit the mode of reasonable thinking. The Mishnah is substance, Talmud is method. The Mishnah is what we do and say. The Talmud is how we think about what we do and say.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 59)

“Judaism is called “a legalistic religion,” meaning, it is a religion that teaches norms of behavior and belief. And so it is – and so is every religion that regards the community as critical, the conduct of life together as consequential. Only religions that people invent for themselves, one by one, as modes of entirely private and personal conviction, may describe themselves as no legalistic.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 138)

“The Talmud of Babylonia from the moment of its closure at about 600 C.E. [=A.D.] served as the textbook of Judaism and for Judaism today continues to provide the final and authoritative statement of the Torah revealed by God to Moses at Sinai.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 165)

“The power of the Talmud lies in its translation into concrete and everyday matters of the two most powerful intellectual components of Western civilization from its roots to our own time, science and philosophy, specifically,

“[1] Aristotle’s principles of knowledge and

“[2] Socrates’ (Plato’s) principles of rational inquiry and argument.”

(Neusner 2004b, p. 165)

“A single document, the Talmud of Babylonia, - that is to say, the Mishnah, a philosophical law code that reached closure at ca. 200 C.E., as read by the Gemara, a commentary to thirty-seven of the sixty-three tractates of that code, compiled in Babylonia, reaching closure by ca. 600 C.E., - from ancient times to the present day has served as the medium of instruction for all literate Jews, teaching, by example alone, the craft of clear thinking, compelling argument, correct rhetoric.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 200)

“Take the Mishnah, for instance, which, people generally suppose, gained its privilege by reason of its sponsor (supposedly: author), Judah the Patriarch. The Mishnah, however it originated, is alleged to have enjoyed the sponsorship of the governor of the Jews of the Land of Israel (a.k.a. Palestine) with Roman support. The same document, it appears from the Talmud, likewise was treated as authoritative by the governor of the Jews of the Babylonian satrapy of the Iranian empire, the exilarch.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 219). “The Gemara put forth for holy Israel a source of reasoned community that for all time would make of holy Israel a preserve of contentious argument in a world of inarticulate force. Its dialectics civilized Israel, the holy community and, the theologians would add, Israel then conformed to the model and the image of the God who created all being through reasoned speech. And that is why the Talmud won.” (Neusner 2004b, p. 223).

With this rhetorical claim, the book reaches its end.

Neusner, J., Understanding the Talmud. A Dialogic Approach, Ktav Publishing House, Jersey City, NJ, USA, 2004.

17 October 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 145. (Twyman 2009): The Kabbalah Code

Letter from Lhasa, number 145. (Twyman 2009): The Kabbalah Code

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Twyman, J. F., with P. Gruber, The Kabbalah Code. A True Adventure, Hay House, 2009.

(Twyman 2009).

James F. Twyman,

Philip Gruber

This book has all the ingredients of the successful story. A “spiritual trip”, religious tourism, but in epoch of airplanes. A code to be discovered and finally discovered. Rapid movements among different places. Each move produces events. Meaningful symbolisms. Etc.

It is actually the last point, not “etc.”, “symbolism”, to be probably an insuperable weakness. Are places and building to be situated in places and built in a way to catalyse and transmit energy, or it is the same fact of attributing some strong meaning and power to places and buildings to suggest and produce perceptions, visions?

If there is only one G-d, places are irrelevant. It is everywhere. “Energy” is everywhere. Apart from self suggestion, naturally. If places and buildings produce self-suggestions... If you “liberate”, in some way, your energy, you do not need specific places. YOU need to be different, probably.

The discovered code is between pseudo-Judaism and pseudo-Christianity, with the finally finding of a wife for G-d. In fact Mary is defined as “the Mother of the Universe” (Twyman 2009, p. 208). Actually, the central advice (the discovered code?!) is typically Americanish: YOU have a role to play! They could remain home. Anyway, in this way, everything is spiced with “religious” exotericism.

There are also “secrets” about Christianity. Mary Magdalene. Whatever the reasons and, eventually the goals, from an ideological point of view Christianity is a Jewish creation. The Gospels are Jewish. The first organisers of “Christianity” are Jewish. When the tales on Jesus were written, he was obviously represented with a wife or partner. Celibatic priests are a later invention. Since Judaism lived and is living in various ways inside Christian churches and congregation, obviously there was and there is time to time and place to place the pleasure to preserve the “rumour” of Jesus with a wife (or, eventually, more wives). The “secret” eventually to be unveiled was and is eventually what is under the nose of whoever wants to see it: the origins of the intellectual construction became “Christianity”. Gospels and other writing have been Jewish ways for ridiculing the political, and also the religious, role of rabbis, their collaborationism with Romans, the damages they procured to the whole Jewish people. The authors of (Twyman 2009) just play around the “secret”, the rumour, of Mary Magdalene, the partner, or one of the partners, of Jesus, Jesus of the tales written from Jews after the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem.

The book is also built around the magic power of certain words and expressions. Judaism is more radical. All words are “magic”. “Powers” are in respiration and in concentration. Also is something else.

...“religious” conspiracy literature...

Kabbalah is something indefinable. Receiving. It is the receiving of the knowledge and of the powers one is looking for and one becomes ready to receive. It is a lot of combined things. And also more. Jewish dialectics can drive in a multiplicity of directions and environments.

Has it a code? If the authors of (Twyman 2009) have really found it, ...congratulations! The book is anyway a pleasant reading.

Twyman, J. F., with P. Gruber, The Kabbalah Code. A True Adventure, Hay House, 2009.

Letter from Lhasa, number 144. (Hudson 2002): Super Imperialism

Letter from Lhasa, number 144. (Hudson 2002): Super Imperialism

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Hudson, M., Super Imperialism. The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance, Pluto Press, 2002.

(Hudson 2002).

Michel Hudson

The U.S. Empire is an empire of debt financed from the same countries it dominates, alias from the whole world. The US dollar does not collapse because it is artificially supported from the whole world. The same system of international aid, the aids to “poor countries”, has the function to keep the “poor countries” poor and dependent. Obviously, nobody would help to create one’s own future enemies. If one helps, one “helps” for preserving domination relations.

In this book you’ll find a history about that.

The USA comes out from WWI as an overwhelming world creditor. On that, and on their economic and military power, they build their power.

“The postwar dynamic of U.S.-European financial relations stood in sharp contrast to the situation that had existed after World War I, when the circular flow had been from the private sector through the governments of Europe back to the U.S. Government. After World War II, Europe’s payments to the United States were principally for actual goods and services, not for reparations or Inter-Ally debts. A circular investment and trade relationship once again was established, but this time European governments were lent funds directly by U.S. official agencies and the World Bank rather than by private investors. These funds were used to pay private sector exporters, not the U.S. Treasury. The U.S. Government for its part ultimately obtained its resources from the private sector, via taxation and the sale of government bonds. The net flow of funds through the world economy thus ran from the U.S. Government to the U.S. exporters.” (Hudson 2002, p. 143-144)

A wide range of administrative measures and actions assured, anyway, the U.S. hegemony.

In the post-WWII world, the natural synergies would have been between the USSR (and China), and relative block, and the USA, and relative block. The cold war, lunched from the U.K., was a strike to these natural synergies. There was also a USSR interest to avoid that the US economic power could “capture” the countries of its block, of the Soviet Empire. Idem for China, even if, naturally, at the time of the Churchill’s Fulton speech, “red” China was not actually been yet [fully] created. In this game of freezing (or don’t) half of the world, the British Empire won and the U.S. one lost. It is understandable why the U.K. was always very generous relatively to USSR desires (see forced repatriations of Russians-Soviets, after WWII) even when the cold war had been already announced and launched. What, if exact, threatens the thesis of a real U.S. world dominance. Their overwhelming economic and military power, with all the inevitable parasitisms, was not and is not supported from adequate political-strategic vision and initiative. “Dominance” was not absolute.

The point of view of Michael Hudson is naturally different. He sees a UK fully inside the U.S. imperial system.

The fixation on the only “US imperialism” is, de facto, a way for deceiving about the complexity and also decentralisation of the domination and oppression relations. Dominated are generally happy to be dominated and to be protected sub-butchers.

The Hudson’s work is anyway valuable for the information it provides.

Inside the “world order” came out from WWII, with transformations with the partial collapse of the Russian Empire, countries and areas could find their way to development while other one remained underdeveloped. It seems idealistic and voluntaristic whatever illusion that “Third World economies” could have created or could create a “new international economic order”. Some ones already exploited and are exploiting their chances. Others didn’t and don’t.

If and when the USA will collapse, or irreversibly rapidly decline, some different order will replace the existing one. It is what actually verifies everyday with force relations variously changing.

Hudson, M., Super Imperialism. The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance, Pluto Press, 2002.

05 October 2009

Letter from Lhasa, number 143



Letter from Lhasa, number 142. (Freely 2009): Aladdin’s Lamp

Letter from Lhasa, number 142. (Freely 2009): Aladdin’s Lamp

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Freely, J., Aladdin’s Lamp, How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, USA, 2009.

(Freely 2009).

John Freely

Civilisations are always intertwined. Knowledge has no real monopolies.

Greek science came and re-came to Europe, plunged into the dark ages, through the Islamic world. This book tells how.

It is a long journey around the ex-Roman Empire and further.

Freely, J., Aladdin’s Lamp, How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, USA, 2009.