The summary suggested that since science has not decoded the mechanics of genetic mutation on the scale required for functional evolution, humans were created by God and are not descended from apes.

Seeing as the person who attended and summarised the talk for me had no desire to be descended from an ape, this was preaching to the converted. I hope it was not what Hasofer said, as I would think it clear to a statistician that the lack of clear scientific evidence to fill in all the holes in a theory is no real support to a counter-argument. I still fail to see the exclusive disjunction between creation and evolution.

But I was just as shocked by the idea that someone I know would have real aversion to the idea of being cousin to a gorilla or chimpanzee. Is this person equally shocked that our food is grown in something as disgusting as manure? Do they forget that they are cousin to genocidal serial killers, murderous tyrants, and fraudulent businessman? Do they find no compassion for animals, be they apes, or our more distant relatives the dogs and the snails that they are so upset to call them “cousin”, “friend”, “granddad”? Surely, we humans are at least as disgusting, even if we claim to be so with greater sophistication.

There is no q in “Al-Naqba”. The Arabic spelling includes the equivalent of a Hebrew kaf, not their quf.

It seems ‘q’ is used, often by Jewish sources, to Arabise the word and make it seem more foreign and distasteful.

Even the spellings of words can express one’s biases, just as “Moslem”, once an accepted variant, is now considered more derogatory than “Muslim”.

The AJN should utilise the more neutral and accurate spellings, and write articles on “Nakba” rather than “Naqba”.

The printed letter stops after the second paragraph, which I maybe should have made more clear: I do not accuse the Jewish press of a conspiracy to use a stigmatised spelling variant. Language is more subtle and subconscious than that.

I try not to dictate others’ language use. In the case of a newspaper, though, there are always editorial style guides, and I wanted to point out two factors in the spelling of this word:

1. Phonology: there is a letter q in Arabic, but it’s not used in the word “nakba”.
2. Sociolinguistics: people have a choice to use “nakba” or “naqba” as both are found in the English press (according to Google in about 10:1 ratio). They may actually use the latter because they perceive it as a more “authentic” transliteration. Of course, it is not. On the other hand, it does make the word look more foreign, and so its use carries some pre-conceived “Arab” feeling that makes the word no longer neutral.

Of course, the word is naturally not a neutral word, whichever way it is spelt. People will often react to it either with distate or with pride. Nonetheless, it shouldn’t be spelt in the “unbiased press” in a way that shows one’s side and one’s ignorance more than necessary.

For instance, the hand-under-thigh oath that we see between Eliezer (?) and Abraham, and between Joseph and Jacob. Rashi takes this practice as akin to swearing on a bible: Eliezer and Joseph swore on the place of circumcision. Ibn Ezra’s comment is not clear on whether “thigh” is mere euphemism as Rashi takes it, but claims that:

It was the law (custom?) in those days for a man to put his hand under the thigh of authority … as if to say: behold, my hand is under your authority to do your will. And this is still the law in India.

I am not aware of any such custom today, unlike where Ibn Ezra reports that the Hindus are vegetarian. Pharaoh commands that Israel and his sons should reside in Goshen, as “those who herd sheep are an abomination to Egypt.” Rashi says that for Egyptians, sheep were sacred. Ibn Ezra says that the Egyptians of that time were vegetarian, and he compares them to Hindus that “do not eat and do not drink all that comes from a feeling creature, even today.” Later he expands:

India and Egypt are both descendants of Ham, and each relates to the other… The [Egyptian] practice [of vegetarianism] did not change, until the Ishmaelite Kingdom overtook them, and they acquired its religion.

There he also notes that Indians believed “one cannot speak with God and live,” which, he argues, the Egyptians also would have held and hence doubted Moses.

These comments may say a lot about Ibn Ezra’s image of ancient sociology and anthropology. He seems to see the Hindus as continuing an ancient tradition that the Egyptians and Jews had a share in.

Ibn Ezra might have find his respect for Indians in Hindu mathematical and astronomical scholarship. He is known for bringing Hindu numerical and arithmetic concepts to some of the minds of Europe, and for translating to Hebrew some early Arabic works based on Hindu astronomy. A few times in his bible commentary he mentions the Indians with regards to their study of the stars and reckoning of times.

Rabbi Ibn Ezra did a lot of travelling in his life, living off the hardly dependable sales of his intellectual produce. Yet, while there is a tradition that he visited India, academics have endeavoured to prove otherwise. Possibly even more remarkable, then, is his oriental intrigue that shows itself on occasion in his religious commentaries. (Was Ibn Ezra a Jubu?)

דְיֵישׁוֹד דְמָא דַאֲנָשָׁא בְסָהֲדִין, עַל מֵימַר דַיָנַייָא דְמֵיה יִתאֲשַׁד

The spiller of man’s blood with witnesses, upon the word of judges his blood will be spilled.

Pseudo-Jonathan takes this another step and, while saying that the court may kill with evidence, without witnesses, “the Master of the World will surely take retribution on him on the great day of judgement.”
((*poetictarg:For a targum that follows the poetic shape, but not the alliteration, see the Fragmentary Targum: “דשפך אדמיה דברנש, על ידי ברנש אדמיה משתפך”. The Peshitta and Neofiti also come close.*))

The rabbinic system in effect follows Pseudo-Jonathan, but qualifies it to two valid witnesses who had warned the killer immediately prior to the act and who had witnessed its perpetration after the warning was ignored. Resultingly, it becomes very difficult to convict a murderer and — as I have heard many rabbis boast — a Sanhedrin that committed someone to death once in seventy years was considered bloody. That is, the death sentence was extremely rare (as it should be!).

But this makes no sense to me: the reason for not performing execution is not because of the sanctity of life, it is because the person cannot be convicted under the strict requirements of rabbinic courts. Letting all but one murderer in seventy years go unpunished does not make the justice system moral, it makes it dysfunctional! Is there a system for handling the majority of cases where the heavy proof required could not be burdened? Or do we leave justice to God and killers on the street as Pseudo-Jonathan suggests?
((*makkot:Mishnah Makkot 1:10:

סנהדרין ההורגת אחד בשבוע נקראת חובלנית. רבי אליעזר בן עזריה אומר: אחד לשבעים שנה. רבי טרפון ורבי עקיבא: אומרים אילו היינו בסנהדרין, לא נהרג אדם מעולם. רבן שמעון בן גמליאל אומר: אף הן מרבין שופכי דמים בישראל.

A Sanhedrin that executes one person in seven years is called murderous.
Rabbi Eleazer ben Azariah says: One person in seventy years.
Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva says: If we were in the Sanhedrin, no person would ever be executed.
Rabbi Simeon ben Gamaliel responds: Yes; and thus they would increase spillers of blood in Israel.

*))((*simeon:In the actual Mishnah brought in the preceding note, we see that Simeon ben Gamaliel had this idea too, although with support for capital punishment.*))

Am I the only one who has agonised with this question when Rabbis have proudly praised the moral supremacy of the Sanhedrin?

But I think it is remarkable that of those 366 nights, I stayed in a hostel / motel / hotel only:

• 5 nights in San Francisco (July 19, 20, 23, 24, 25)
• 4 nights in New Orleans (July 26, 27, 30, 31)
• 1 night in Memphis (August 1)
• 2 nights in Niagara (March 23, 24)
• 1 night in London (April 30)
• 2 nights in Amsterdam (May 1, 2)
• 2 nights in Paris (May 7, 8)

That’s seventeen days in total!

I wanted to say an enormous thank you to everyone I’ve stayed with along the way, who have all been extraordinarily hospitable to me in finding somewhere for me to sleep, feeding me, taking me out occasionally, giving me their kids to play with…

I failed to understand this assumption until I decided to spend a bit of time in a yeshiva. Although maybe the feeling has decreased a little since then, the atmosphere here is one of immersion and little distraction, and so the first time I tried to leave the yeshiva, I felt somewhat guilty for not studying for a few hours. Learning of course doesn’t preclude enjoying (through studying or apart from it), but you really begin to notice when you have left it for something else.

It is an idea far from the secular world. There time is money; here time is Torah. It is a very different heuristic by which to measure one’s life and the expense of a day’s hours.

The focus on the bookshelf and the study hall is certainly not a focus of other religions, while most people in this pragmatic world consider learning as something utilitarian. Judaism has an equivalent in the idea of learning in order to be able to properly observe religious duty, i.e. mitzvot. But while this is also talmud torah leshem shamayim (learning for the sake of Heaven) it is distinguished starkly from talmud torah lishmah—learning for its own sake.

The academic world’s study and research nearly comes close in its attitude. There learning ideally aims only for the embetterment of the world in some disciplines, and for the sake of the investigation itself in others. But there its lacks in motivation: it is not in the same way leshem shamayim. There is a significant philosophical distinction between talmud torah and simply investigating text, even Jewish religious text.

In talmud torah lishmah, people do not try to look for shortcuts. One struggles (and this can really mean fighting) to gain insight into texts that thousands of others before have already claimed to understand and have even summarised. There is a focus on ‘inyan, understanding evne small passages deeply, and exploring the ways they have been discussed and juggled by the sages of the ages. It is a fantastic pursuit and exercise for the mind, but also plays centrally in developing one’s relationship with God, tradition, and the physical world one lives in.

Having said all that, while I think there is merit to dedicating some time, whether it be hours, or years, to learning, recognising the need for both leisure and financial support is also important (neither to excess), an idea that some ultra-orthodox segments of the Jewish community relatively neglect. The Torah itself is certain in describing a lifestyle that involves financial and everyday interactions, and indeed one fails to fulfill much of the Torah law without practicing a lifestyle away from the beit midrash. While the bookworm is admired in Judaism, the active mensch, a person of good deeds, is often moreso.

If this sounds like you, STOP.

Or at least check first to see if you can find evidence that what is said in the email is true. A lot of what you read online is fact; most is opinion. Some is true, some is false, some wavers between the two. Others may be true opinion but based on false backgrounds.

That was the case with an email I received today. Twice, from opposite sides of the world.

Entitled: Fwd: FW: Yom Hashoah or alternatively FW: Very important for everyone to know!

This week, the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it “offended” the Moslem population which claims it never occurred. This is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it. It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved andhumiliated with the German and Russia peoples looking the other way! Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be “a myth,” it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide! Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world. Please send this e-mail to 10 people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain. It will only take you a minute to pass this along – Thanks!

If I hadn’t already heard of this curriculum removal in major news sources, this email should be suspicious. It was not hard to Google its first two lines before replying to the person who sent it to me (and the person who sent it to them).

Thanks, but the premise of the email is false.

What happened:

According to a study, “Teachers are dropping controversial subjects such as the Holocaust and the Crusades from history lessons because they do not want to cause offence to children from certain races or religions, a report claims. A lack of factual knowledge among some teachers, particularly in primary schools, is also leading to “shallow” lessons on emotive and difficult subjects, according to the study by the Historical Association.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article1600686.ece

What your email reported:
> This week, the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum
> because it “offended” the Moslem population which claims it never
> occurred.

Not the same. The forwarded email is over-reacting (and xenophobic). Yes, the issue of English education may be noteworthy, but it does not necessarily relate to Muslims, and is not as serious as the email reports.

Besides, the email fails to distinguish the Holocaust and the Second World War and so makes some far-off claims. See the discussion of this email at: http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=14139&st=0&#entry200276

It is also important to be aware that these emails get edited along the way. Similar content is pulled together from different forwards, context is changed, countries are changed from US to Canada to Australia, and in this case, the second version I received had been neatened into paragraphs.

In many cases, the first place to check if you receive a possibly-bogus email is Snopes.com. But if that fails, do the research yourself, or just don’t pass it on.

PS: it seems Snopes does have an article on this email, which is much better than my response and goes into those components of the email that are true and those that are false in detail.

Thanks.

Suddenly in these last few days, University administration has decided the chapel in the McGill “Birks” Religious Studies building no longer exists. Signs that once indicated its presence are now gone. The room that the rest of the building is centred around no longer has any official purpose or title.

(It seems Hillel Montreal has also removed its Chapel sign. A plaque proudly reading “CHAPEL” remains lying around the room, presumably from before the recent renovations here. But its removal “chapel” was probably a rejection of terminology and not an issue of secularisation. The one currently labelling the room says “Beit Midrash” instead, which possibly implies being more Orthodox, but maybe less religious, changing focus from worship to text.)

Québec is not known for being the most tolerant place for outsiders. Its language laws have threatened the removal of historical signage, and cause it to have PFK stores while France does not dispute the name “KFC”. In our case it seems that secularism, or at least some form of xenophobia is intended to keep the Québécois with what is familiar to them.

And yet Montréal is still built around its famous cathedrals, and most of its street names that don’t begin with “Saint” begin “Sainte”. As my professor B. Barry Levy argues, if we want to make the city secular, we not only have to rename all the streets, but we have to stop celebrating Christmas and Easter as public holidays… He would rather putting the Christ back into Christmas and allowing religious expression in a more pluralist society. Despite being Dean of the aforementioned Religious Faculty, he only found out about the changes in signage after returning from two days off for Pesach, and considers it akin to Egyptian pharaohs each removing the names of their predecessors, as if they had never ruled.

Sydney had its share of the religious accommodation issue in 2003 when it was suggested that the pedestrian traffic lights be automatic (and not button-triggered) on Sabbaths, in certain areas with religious Jewish populations (Bondi Rd). Despite the fact that a lot of the world’s urban areas run on automatic pedestrian lights, for some reason a lot of the local community were offended by the thought of accommodating to the Orthodox Jewish community’s (albeit strange-seeming) needs for safety. Yes, it would cost some Council money, but they make up a significant portion of the municipal population, and it detracts for nobody as far as I can tell. It seems that last December the Council acceded to the requests (although using some motion sensors) but according to the over-100 comments on that article, it was met with largely ignorant and intolerant obstinacy—at least by online Telegraph readers. (“Once again it shows that ordinary people are left to the pandering of a minority group.” says Fred Lavender; “If certain people consider pushing a button to be work then they don’t belong in our society and I don’t see why we need to accede to these so called religious laws. It seems to be an all male agenda. Why am I not surprised.” remarks Colleen Appleton; Leigh Roberts: “What an absolute joke. Australia used to be a place where people wanted to fit in, now its just about complaining about anything and everything that dosen’t suit.” They go on and on and on.) Even if I might agree that there are better places to spend the money, our society spends similar money on erecting Christmas decorations, and certainly more on NYE fireworks.

The seventh definition of “of” given by Merriam-Webster is:

used as a function word to indicate something from which a person or thing is delivered eased of her pain or with respect to which someone or something is made destitute robbed of all their belongings“

This may help understand the outlook for “freedom of religion” in an increasingly secular world…

I think it’s largely influenced by novelty, and a little too by practicality. Many of these people I doubt have much interest in what I’m up to, the photos I’m in, or in writing me a message. Rather, because Facebook is a new thing to them, everytime they see someone they know and are amicably acquainted with, they get trigger-happy as they quickly grow their friend list on this online social network. I did it too: when I first joined, I added anyone from Sydney Uni that I vaguely knew, but that was because there were very few people from USyd at all on Facebook, so to add 5 of them was not a big deal; we shared not only our bond of acquaintance but the bond of being part of the minority Australian community on a North America-dominated web site.

And then there’s the convenience, because even if you’ve only met a person once, if you have a photo of them, you can’t tag them in it without them being your “friend”. And after a first acquaintance, there’s always a possibility of the relationship growing, but on the other hand you may never see them again; still you add them and are too lazy to reverse it. But I don’t think this is the real reason I’ve been receiving add-requests: I’ve not spoken to these people in many moons.

A person’s definition of “Facebook friend” is almost certainly looser than their definition of friend, but how much looser? Just because I am a Facebook-friend with A and not with B doesn’t mean I like A more than B, it just means that A probably has a more lenient definition of “friend”, and I was polite enough to accept their approach.

This is yet another of those online social problems that arises when you don’t have to look someone in the eye. Like being able to write more offensively online than you would ever say to someone’s face. Or maybe it’s just that the word “friend” is too weighted and if they could make up their own word for the relationship whereby I’m in someone’s list and they’re in mine, then that would cool me off and alleviate my worries. (I guess that’s why AIM chose “buddy” and ICQ used “contact”.)

Other social networking sites like (Newscorp’s) MySpace have the same problem, of course, but worse. At least with Facebook it’s easy to find and befriend people you know. (Whereas I consider MySpace probably the internet’s worst-designed most-popular web site.)

I also don’t think the social issues are Facebook’s biggest problem. No: that, in my opinion, would be the lack of internationalisation… But I might talk about that another time.

So, do I accept?

The event was hosted by Hillel UQAM’s committee for Étudiants pour la Compréhension de la Tolérance, and supported by numerous organisations. I received a free ticket yesterday from Allison when she realised she couldn’t go (a rehearsal, I presume) and so landed up tonight at Spectrum—a large entertainment hall made for concerts and not so appropriate—waiting in a line for headsets that would provide a concurrent English translation.

While the novelty was to see Elie Wiesel and hear him speak, the translation was bound to detract: it was stinted and often hard to understand; it didn’t convey all of the speaker’s emotion or passion; it didn’t follow his lips, or synchronise with the laughter of half the audience; and I have a habit of falling asleep when I have earphones in.

Still, the ideas were the main point. Despite the title of the organisation that brought him out, Wiesel spoke out against tolerance. He said that in order to tolerate someone else, you have to think pretty highly of yourself. Tolerance says “the other is inferior to me, but I’m cool with that”. Instead, one needs to find respect for others. (This in the end is just semantics and words are only what you and others mean them to be.)

He points out that one should love others, not because they are the same as you but because they are different. Each culture and each individual is unique, and that is precisely what we need to appreciate. Wiesel seemed to argue that totalitarian regimes did not understand this and they saw that one person’s role could be filled by someone else. This is precisely their fault, in not realising that each person is irreplacable.

This idea of loving people for their difference is in contrast with much of the human rights movement of the 20th century which focussed on what people have in common, as the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins: “All Human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights”. I had also understood Leviticus 19:18‘s command to “love your neighbour like yourself” to focus on the commonalities: later in the chapter (v34) is a command to “love the stranger like yourself because you were a stranger in Egypt”. I like to take an interpretation where “like yourself” in the second case, and therefore the first means “because he is like yourself”. For a long time, too, I have tried to appreciate and cherish the differences between people and peoples. There is a blessing in Judaism that one is meant to say upon encountering an exceptionally different person “blessed are You … who distinguishes the creations (משנה הבריות)”. Similarly, one who sees a multitude of Israel should say “‘Blessed is He who understands mysteries’ for their opinions are different one from another and their faces are different one from another.” (Berakhot 58a) We see a contrast here between loving because of similarity and loving because of difference. The point may be that at the most basic level it is important to understand that all are the same, but at another level it is important to love, and to respect people, for their differences (and not just in spite of them).

And while on the topic of difference, Wiesel multiple times protested against indifference as possibly the worst quality a person can have. He encouraged people to act; to create petitions simply written “Save Darfur”, signed and sent to Prime Minister, President, Secretary General, from each university campus, and surely something will come from it. He filled his talk with anecdotes, like when he first was alerted to the situation in Sudan in 2000, his reaction and his influence in pushing politicians to action. Also in 2000, Wiesel had visited Germany and spoke there in parliament. There he spoke with the president: Germany has been very supportive in aiding the victims of the holocaust, and in aiding Israel—but still it has not asked Israel for forgiveness. Two weeks later, the president spoke in German before the Knesset, apologised and asked for forgiveness from the Jewish state. This reminded me of the Sorry movement in Australia, which aims for governmental apology for a “stolen generation” of Aboriginal children. The first thing I thought is the likely meaninglessness of governments acting on behalf of earlier incarnations of themselves. But asking for forgiveness is also a much more meaningful act than saying sorry. “Sorry” is thrown around all the time, said when you want to make your way through a crowd, or when you step on someone’s toe. Asking for forgiveness has to be a much more sincere and personal act—it necessarily involves two partners and has some sense of mutuality.

In Judaism, asking for forgiveness is something one is meant to do at the start of the year to each person they may have wronged. But to what extent do I have the responsibility to ask the forgiveness of a person who I only wronged through my indifference, or my inaction? A common reaction to such a person would be pity; Kathryn, a class mate, with whom I walked back from the talk, suggested love is appropriate. I think love can be too fluffy, too meaningless (sort of like “sorry”). What does it mean to love such a person you do not yet know personally? Maybe the appropriate reaction is to ask for forgiveness on the inside, in your heart, and give respect on the outside, in action.