AMULETS, ASTROLOGY & APIKORSUS

בס"ד


Tamuz 28

Class went very well again today! YAY!
I'm quite fond of this group of students. They're bright & eager to do good work & not pressuring me too badly to veer from the course curriculum (Hebrew calligraphy & midrash on the Alefbet) & leap into teaching them sofrut.
(sigh of relief)

At lunch Ben & R' Dave Ingber & I were making jokes about how angrily Rambam declared: "Ayn mazal l'Yisrael!" (there is no star over Israel, ie, Jews shouldn't believe in astrology, because it's bupkes & doesn't apply to us...

A little known fact came up in this conversation: Rambam's grandson, Ovadiyah Maimonides ben Avraham ben HaRambam, converted to Sufism. Yeah, that's right. Everyone makes such a big deal about how the German-Jewish philosopher, Moses Mendelssohn, had a Jewish grandson who was baptized a Christian. What's the agenda here? Who does this very selective view serve? Rambam was only a human, as inteligent & genius-like as he was, & there is no reason to hide that he had a heretic in his family any more than there is a reason to advertise that Mendelssohn had one in his...

Re-hashing George W's changing the name of the "War on Terror" to the "Global Struggle against Violent Extremism"...
So now I suppose what he's doing isn't warlike. It's a Struggle? As in Jihad? As in Kampf? After he goes to jail for his impeachement crimes, he can write a book all about his struggle...

Our human will & desire, passion & conviction can count for an awful lot. This is why our consciousness-raising whether in prayer, meditation or amulets can have influence. This is not a heretical statement. We have plenty of traditional sources which indicate that HaShem is always looking for intercessors to upset the system which G@d has set up.
I later had a chevruta over Sefer Mishnat HaSofer (which handily includes Qeset HaSofer & Lishkat HaSofer...) because I make time to review everything I have learned to earn my "soferet" designation. It's a vital exercise & fulfills the mitzvah of talmud Torah, so barukh HaShem.

Moti Fuchs is an amazing Israeli cantor from Queens who was doing mincha today in alternating Ashkenazi accents. I'm quite serious. He switched from hungarian to Galitzianer to G@d knows what with precision & skill. Possibly one of the most freylich (joyful) services I've ever seen in my life. Buy his cds.