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Pray with Your Hands!

 Active Prayer

The waving of the Arba Minim (the Four Species) — the Na’anu’im— serves as a focal point of the t’filot of Chag HaSukkot. Interestingly, though, one can fulfill his minimal obligation by merely picking of the Arba Minim (See Sukka 42a). However, the clear implication of many Rishonim is that Na’anu’im are a l’chat’chila d’Oraisa – a Biblically mandated ideal enhancement to the performance of the mitzva (see Rambam (Hilchot Lulav (7:9); also Tosfot and Ritva to 37b who rule stringently in case of doubt, presumably following the rule S’feika D’Oraisa L’Chumra). Indeed, the Mishna in Masechet Sukka (29b see Rashi there) indicates that unlike the Hoshana (myrtle) and Arava (willow) whose minimum size is three t’fachim (handbreadths), the Lulavrequires 4 t’fachim. The extra tefach, as the Mishna explains, is necessary “k’dei l’na’nai’a bo” — in order to wave it. Although the Ba’al Ha’Itur and Me’iri maintain that this requirement for the fourth tefach is only Mi’d’rabbanan, the overwhelming majority of Rishonim and subsequent Poskim maintain that 4 t’fachim is an absolute requirement which would seem to indicate its Biblical origin. Even though the Na’anu’im are only l’chat’chila, the lulav must at least be fit for waving.

What is signified by this Biblically mandated waving? Furthermore, it is clear from the Mishna (37b) that the Four Minim are to be waved at two places in the Hallel — once at “Hodu Lashem Ki Tov” — “Give praise to G-d for He is good” and once at “Ana Hashem Hoshi’a Na” — “Please G-d, save us now!”. These expressions contain drastically different themes. “Hodu” is a call to praise Hashem for his everlasting kindness. “Ana” is a heartfelt prayer for salvation. How does the waving of the Arba Minim enhance these diverse prayers?

What clearly emerges is that the waving of the Arba Minim serves as both a t’fila of bakasha (request) and a song of hoda’ah (praise). But how does the lulav accomplish both tasks? The Mishna in Rosh Hashana (16a) relates that “Be’chag nidonin al ha’mayim” — on Sukkot the world is judged concerning the amount of rainfall for that year. The four species all require additional watering in addition to rainfall to survive. The Torah even refers to Aravot as Arvei Nachal — willows that grow by a river. There is even a minority position in Tosfot (34a) that the Aravot must grow by a river to be valid. Even though we do not follow this position (see Shulchan Aruch (647:1) and Mishna B’rura (3)), certainly the Torah highlights the role of water in the Arba Minim. Indeed, one of the textual proofs that the Biblical “Pri eitz hadar” (Leviticus 23:40) is a citron is that the word “hadar” is etymologically related to the Greek “hydro” meaning water (Sukka 35a). Hence, the Torah refers to a fruit that needs much additional watering to survive. The waving of the species then, is a form of t’fila for rain. Besides the t’fila for rain on Shmini Atzeret, we pray every day of Sukkot for rain in the Hallel by waving the Arba Minim at “Ana“.

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From Torah Web, here.

Donald Trump: Fake News!

JFK, Trump, and Camelot

Gary North – September 23, 2017

If Trump was ever sincere, his election has proven that one person simply cannot fight this corrupt system, this horrid swamp. Trump the reformer, the unlikeliest of knights in shining armor, is gone. The renegade billionaire striking fear into the heart of the establishment lasted a brief shining moment, like Camelot. — Donald Jeffries

These are the concluding words of an article listing Donald Trump’s sellouts since January 20, 2017. There have been a lot of them.

I think he is correct about his association of Trump with Camelot. Trump is a lot more like Camelot then Jeffries imagines.

JFK AS KING ARTHUR

We associate Jack Kennedy’s presidency with the 1960 musical that was totally mythical: Camelot.

Why do we do this? What possible connection does the presidency of John F. Kennedy have to King Arthur?

We do it because Jackie Kennedy was one of the great PR masters of the 20th century. Shortly after the assassination, she saw an advantage like only one other in American political history: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln became mythic in retrospect. It was fake news at its most implausible, but it worked.

She literally designed the whole campaign to connect her husband’s presidency with a mythical King Arthur, taking advantage of the enormous popularity of the musical.

It took 50 years for this story to become public. It still is not well known, but here are some mainstream media articles that tell the story:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/how-jackie-kennedy-invented-the-camelot-legend-after-jfks-deathhttp://people.com/politics/jackie-kennedy-invented-camelot-jfk-assassination

http://nypost.com/2013/11/10/inventing-camelot-how-jackie-kennedy-shaped-her-husbands-legacy

The posthumous legend of JFK was entirely mythical. It was tacked on top of a musical that was entirely mythical. The musical was tacked on top of a book that was entirely mythical. The book that was entirely mythical was based on one of the most popular literary myths in English literature. Virtually nothing is known of Arthur.

It was myth layered upon myth that would lead anybody to believe that JFK was anything more than a superficial, verbally gifted, speed reading, James Bond loving, serial adulterer. He got us into Vietnam, and he is to blame for having done so. He led Lyndon Johnson into the big muddy, from which Johnson never emerged. Neither did Nixon.

DONALD TRUMP AS KING ARTHUR

Trump gave a good inaugural address, a lot better than most. But he began to retreat from that address within days of having delivered it.

Trump’s candidacy was fake news. He coined the phrase, and it truly applied to everything he promised. It was all fake from day one. The man is a deal-doer. Deal-doers have no principles. They just do deals. They compromise. They lie. They over-promise. They deceive. They profit by putting lipstick on pigs. They do whatever it takes to get the deal done. He campaigned as a deal-doer. I believed him. That’s why I did not vote for him. I voted for Gary Johnson. I did not want to be sullied retroactively in my own mind by the sellouts that were inevitable.

The problem we are facing is this: Trump always got out of bad deals by declaring bankruptcy of the corporation in which he was the driving force. He raised money by means of his name, but when the deal went south, he bailed out. Here is the problem: you can’t declare bankruptcy on a presidency easily. Richard Nixon did, but Trump does not want to be remembered the way Nixon is remembered.

He is not going to declare bankruptcy on his presidency. I realize there are people who predict this, but I think it’s ridiculous. His presidency is not a corporation. He is, in the language of business, the sole proprietor. He is going to attempt to cobble together his presidential legacy by a series of deals. That’s why he keeps talking about renegotiating all the things that, during the campaign, he promised were nonnegotiable. For a deal-doer, nothing is nonnegotiable.

I really do think that there has been a Camelot element to Trump’s presidency. This element, like the original, was entirely mythical. His campaign was a series of deceptions in order to seal the deal. His inaugural address was his parting shot, not his opening salvo. His inaugural address was indeed a Camelot moment. It was his version of a Broadway play. He was the star of the play. He understood this.

CONCLUSION

The play has closed. It did not have a long run. He is now starring in its sequel: Merlin. King Arthur has died. Merlin has been declared king. It is a show about hope. It is about faith in magic. The star himself is a magician. He has always been a lot more like Merlin than King Arthur. He is a master of illusion.

The play is still sold out. It will be sold out for another 3 1/2 years. It may be sold out for another 7 1/2 years. That is because Donald Trump is not simply the star of the show, he is in charge of marketing. There has not been a marketer as successful at this level since Franklin Roosevelt.

From Gary North, here.

A Short Defense of the Geocentric Model

Letters: Earthy philosophy

From Amnon Goldberg

Tel Aviv, Israel

The letter quoting Ludwig Wittgenstein on Geocentrism (Letters, 23 March, p
64) reminds one of Bertrand Russell’s observation: “Whether the earth rotates
once a day from west to east as Copernicus taught, or the heavens revolve once a
day from east to west as his predecessors held, the observed phenomena will be
exactly the same: a metaphysical assumption has to be made.”

And in a letter to New Scientist (16 August 1979, p 543), Darcy
Readyhoff, lecturer in navigation at RAF Cranwell, wrote: “One can of course
believe anything one likes as long as the consequences of that belief are
trivial. But when survival depends on belief, then it matters that belief
corresponds to manifest reality. We therefore teach navigators that the stars
are fixed to the Celestial Sphere, which is centred on a fixed earth and around
which it rotates in accordance with laws clearly deduced from common-sense
observation. The Sun and the Moon move across the inner surface of this sphere,
and hence perforce go around the Earth. This means that students of navigation
must unlearn a lot of the confused dogma they learned in school. Most of them
find this remarkably easy, because dogma is as maybe, but the real world is as
we perceive it to be.”

After all, the most straightforward explanation of the zero-velocity result
of the Michelson-Morley experiment and the positive-velocity of the
Michelson-Gale experiment is that the universe really is going around a fixed
Earth!

From New Scientist, here.