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Joshua Cypess Profile picture
@JoshuaCypess
Jan 16, 2021 • 95 tweets • 40 min read • Read on X
27.01/ Week twenty-seven starts here, Jan. 16-22, 2021. Last week's thread is below
27.02/ I was just teaching my children about the wonders of my childhood toys, including the one time I got for my birthday a Lite Brite and the amazing Shrinky-dinks.
27.03/ Played "Lawyers, Guns & Money" for my 11yo daughter who thought it was hilarious & suggested we change rock, paper, scissors to those 3

rock = guns (weapon) 🔫
paper = money 💵
scissors = upside-down for 2 feet (lawyer is a type of person, no?) 🤦🏽

27.04/ The Metsudah translates "Eruv rav" as "riffraff" and despite my longstanding opposition to the jingoistic/bigoted pejoratives related to the group, I did suggest I would accept "scruffy looking nerf herders"

27.05/ I'm all here for this Atari 2600 Game cartridge level art for the #TBvsNO matchup!

27.06/ Thread on #MLKDay
27.07a/ Every triumph at the #TrumpCrisis endgame has been stepped on by the Abuser-in-Chief. Every abusive relationship ends this way, esp. with a malignant narcissist (see gif). We couldn't celebrate Biden's win, the GA win, and Jan 20 won't be different.
27.07b/ So we must pledge to celebrate no matter what he does. BE"H he'll be out of power, his cronies defeated, his spear & shield broken, and his war on his own country and its people will be neutralized.

We've been in a war since the golden escalator. We must enjoy a victory
27.08/ Beyond proud of my wife for being named to a new position as Associate Dean at Rutgers. Not only is she accomplished, brilliant, & possessing "unassailable integrity" but I now get to make a spree of "Dean" puns (e.g. our house is now a Beit Dean)

masongross.rutgers.edu/announcing-the…
27.09/ Just came back from an outdoor shiva call for a community friend who just lost her brother to COVID19. He was 31 years old, newly married, otherwise healthy.

Barukh Dayan ha-Emet. I hate this disease so much.
27.10/ I'm so glad the #Mets fired the slimeball GM. For years the cavalier re-signing of Reyes burned me up. Sports has a unique leadership role in showing no tolerance of abuse, harassment, and toxic masculinity b/c they are role models for many men.
27.11/ I think most of the stupid/bad things I did when I was younger, despite my natural empathy, came from lack of life experience because I hadn't yet learned how my behavior would feel on the receiving end.

Here, "I was young" is an actual excuse, but I feel terrible regret.
27.12/ I'm only noticing the edges of what appears to be the new Olde Tyme music craze, this time: sea-shanties (which seems appropriate as we're all cooped up at home)

(Earlier crazes: swing, barbershop)

My wife is a world's expert in early music, so I can dig the desire
27.13/ COME ON! Does the GOP follow a manual for "how to be the absolutely worst people on earth"? Anti-vax is the 'kids in cages' for biological warfare

Stuff like this is why people dissociate & think there's an actual Devil. Sorry: it's always people
washingtonpost.com/business/2021/…
27.14/ For the pedants who gripe about the redundancy and/or ignorance in saying "chai tea" or "naan bread" wait until you find out that challah is actually removed from plaited Shabbat bread & burned. Yup, the challah of challah isn't real challah.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymologi…
27.15/ One of the best moments during the #TrumpCrisis was when he was booed at the World Series, Oct 27 2019. A special bonus now: disgraced ex-Senator David Perdue (GA-R) was there too!

I've attached a close-up of the dread & humiliation on DJT's face.
27.16/ Mr. Shaub has the depth and wisdom to understand the gravity of the moment and of the loss, except that unlike him, I don't lower my guard until 12:00.01. Until then, Trump's (ym'sh) war on America is still hot, and I'm staying frosty

27.17/ Getting tingly for this schedule. But, again, not laying down my guard until Trump (ym'sh) no longer has his finger on the triggers.
27.18/ I was thinking that I would want to watch Trump (ym'sh) take the walk of shame out of the White House but, instinctively, I realized I don't want to look at that bloated sack of protoplasm for one more second of my life until he's on trial.
27.19/ Two weeks ago, exactly, Trump (ym'sh) led an armed insurrection against America. One week ago, exactly, he was impeached for a second time. Today he is supposed to be stripped of power by the Constitution he declared war against and to which he hates as much as himself.
27.20/ Slinking off, not like a dog (an animal he hates, of course) but a hyena, a scavenger who spots powerful herd animals poised to beat him back.

May the rest of his life be like his afterlife: judgement for his crimes and sins.

Picture of Donald Trump (ym...Marine One lifting off, pre...
27.21/ Don't have the technical abilities to add a song to this silent departure video. Thinking either Mozart's "Requiem" or "Yakety Sax"

But he still has a few hours with his evil hands on the levers of power and I still haven't figured out his escape plan.
27.22/ So many people acting like "it's over" just because the criminal psychopath has left DC. I won't reply to them, rain on their joy, but that horrible man has almost 3 more hours of unfettered control of the US war machine. He can still do enormous harm.
27.23/ OK, yeah, this is correct:

"Trump already had his big crowd of supporters in DC two weeks ago. He wasn’t allowed to have another one.

That was his true farewell address."

27.24/ The Atlanta Dream is going to be sold. What a good run, so far, for that team: two enormous championship wins - GA Senate & dumping Loeffler (twice) - in so short a time.

Back to back trophies.

27.25/ 100% agree.
27.26/ Hey, um, Scriptwriter, I like this. Nice touch.

"Eugene Goodman, the Capitol Police officer who led rioters away from the Senate chamber, will escort Kamala Harris at the inauguration as the new acting deputy House Sergeant at Arms"

27.27/ Watching on CSPAN. Never watched the pre-show before. They just introduced the Obamas. Their confidence is helping ease my apprehension a bit. Oh! Now the Chief Justice
c-span.org/video/?507998-…
27.27b/ I swear, I'm now watching this - and probably will in the future - like a wedding video. Have the same feeling like that to (as officiant, though, my own wedding was a blur)

Also, there's Hunter! Image
27.27c/ My Vice President!
Image
27.28/ OK, I'm starting to relax. This was my main, overarching fear, for the past four years. As a GenXer, I had terror every day that the malignant lunatic would blow us all up, like all school-shooters do
27.29/ VP Harris sworn in! This is getting real. It IS real. Thank God.
27.30/ Yes. Biden is president. It's over.
27.31/ The video. And, yes, I'm still waiting a bit until actual noon. Don't know the law, but I haven't made it this long without having one hand on the doorknob, the other on my loved ones.
27.32/ It's noon. It's really over. Thank God.
27.33/ I do imagine what my role would be in a ceremony like this, and at different times in my life I'd imagine a speaker, a participant, saying a prayer, but to be honest with myself, I'm more the MC announcing the event as it goes along. Ah well.
27.34/ There's a moment at your own identity-changing ceremony - for me, my wedding & my doctoral defense - when your new reality is so strange, you say the new name over and over. That's now, for me, here: VP Harris. President Biden. The government works for us, again.
27.35/ From Jan 20, 2017-2021 we've had to work very hard b/c we had reverted to roles of direct democracy - especially during the first two years. I'm looking forward to trusting that the government is not actively trying to destroy the world, and we can turn to our own things.
27.36/ As an academic, a social theorist, a theologian, a rabbi, there's so much to process, analyze and digest. So much I held in check until 12:00.01. But now I'm so overwhelmed in gratitude to be alive for this day, that I'll put it off still a little longer. Thank You God.
27.37/ But I remember the cold terror of Nov 8, 2016, on the phone with my father planning out how we'd protect the family; whether to flee, fight or both. I felt in my soul every horror of the past 4 years in one instant. Except no nuclear war. Thank God for that.
27.38/ Here's that extraordinary @TheAmandaGorman poem.

As I said after I heard it:

and

and especially:


Thank you Ms. Gorman
27.39a/ For my part, I feel quite lucky that Biden is president because his unique history - 34 years in the Senate, 8 in the White House - allows him to quickly grab the controls & know what he's doing. It feels bashert, and I hope we'll see it as lucky as having Lincoln or FDR
27.39b/ TBH, it's the same with Merrick Garland. The AG was meant to be a grand legal expert and America's lawyer. The guy who should have been on SCOTUS, who can credibly be called a major expert in Constitutional law, is well situated to resolve the unprecedented crises.
27.39c/ Who better than someone like Garland to figure out whether the corrupt pardons count, how to prosecute armed insurrection and sedition by sitting members of Congress & Executive.

We need trials, truth & reconciliation and justice - clear, loud, solid, justice.
27.40/ Not for American Exceptionalism, but we actually did manage to prevent a fascist takeover. Our democracy survived the first Civil War and now the second. We're horribly wounded, and we need to learn the lessons of failed Reconstruction. But. We. Stopped. The. Coup.
27.41/ And, lo, it hath begun: the judges retiring so we can restock the courts with non-lunatics!
27.42/ This is what's coming to mind. The sounds of the guns stopping in World War One at the moment of armistice. Trump's (ym'sh) war was hot until the very end - and now we have so many wounded to tend to.

27.43/ My response to @catvalente

here:
27.44/ Some of my comments over the past 24h.
a) last night, about how I expect to feel today (I was right)

b) not only could we not have survived Trump's (ym'sh) retaining power, but it wouldn't have been 4 years
27.45/ I do wonder why DJT didn't order another code-red this morning. Maybe Pence and/or Mitch held his leash to his face to say "do one more thing and you're yanked"? No heroism by them, it served their own needs to not remove him themselves.

27.46a/ More comments
a) The "Sopranos" vibe from playing "Don't Stop Believing" at his departure

b) I still believe DJT's rise is hard to repeat, but yet admit that the GOP was ripe for a warlord (in @joshtpm terms) to take over
27.46b/ (c) In re: "'we will be back in some form" from DJT


d) What song I was playing this morning to mark the occasion (earlier this year "Street Fighting Man", right now "Move on Up"
27.46c/ (e) In re: the deep cleaning of the White House post-Don

(f) in re: the 'note' that Don left for President Biden

or this option
27.47/ My thanking the indefatigable @atrupar for his invaluable work.

This also goes for @ddale8 & the incredible, brave folk of @mmfa like @ParkerMolloy @revrrlewis and esp. @MattGertz (who still needs to be a error-rage-filter alter-ego for a FL rep.)
27.48/ My summary of how I understand the sadistic pleasure Trump (ym'sh) got from hurting others. He was incredibly lazy except in the only thing that brought him joy: causing pain, especially to POC and women.

27.49/ I mentioned how I kept my eye on the nuclear football today, and there were two times when I thought we'd get into war, one nuclear (NK in 2018, Iran in 2019). Here I speculate that DOD deactivated the codes:

&
27.50/ Sorry, just need to be thorough here:







27.51/ Archiving, sorry again









27.52/ Yes, the longer the day goes on, this feels like a wedding but one following the end of a war. The tension of being on alert - who knows what PTSD triggers have been embedded in my soul! - of needing to take care of my family 24/7.
27.53/ More comments



and lastly, some weird president trivia humor:
27.54a/ I used to think I was able to make these rankings, but now I know I don't know enough. Ya know how as a kid your mom asked "how was school" and you summarized & said "fine"? That "fine" is how I feel about my knowledge level even in US History.
27.54b/ Only recently did I learn Buchanan tried to enshrine slavery in the Constitution. That's pretty evil and showed me I just didn't know enough to act like an expert

In any case, I prefer 'tiers' because it's apples & oranges. But 45 is rock bottom.
27.55/ This is the content I'm here for. Biden at the Resolute Desk, huge stack of executive orders to sign that will start to undo the horrors of the GOP regime

27.56/ Now that's actually over, we can definitively say 'never' and, yes, he never said a bad word about Putin.
27.57/ I thought this was true; a thread about how a lot of the 'big red states' actually have suppressed Native populations. Much like how the old Confederacy survives by suppressing Black voters to steal power

27.58/ This has also been my method/attitude for years. Happy to say it's my trademark
27.59/ When I heard that Ossoff was being sworn in on a rabbi's "Bible"

I guessed it would be the Hertz chumash... and I almost got it: Soncino
27.59b/ Update:
27.60/ Watching the inauguration festivities & I recall the elation I felt 12 yrs ago with the election of Obama. This moment - seeing VP Harris on screen - feels like a different milestone. BHO was the first step that led to a backlash, this feels more like arrival & more stable
27.61/ Amen, brother.

It's especially poignant coming from Rupar, who watched every speech of DJT, while the 71m GOP voters watched only filthy, manipulated lies that made peace intro war, up into down.

27.62/ Was asked which gif exemplifies how I feel after 5 years in the depths of this diseased, violent, fascist GOP hell:
27.63/ My brother @acypess reminded me of what I sent him when the election was called four years ago.

Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 11:49 PM: "Aaron, things are very very bad. To quote Egon, I'm scared beyond all rational thought"

It was one nuclear exchange short of my worst fears.
27.64/ I feel this vibe, but IMO it's a sampling problem; scold 'socialists' (who're angry at ppl celebrating "good" b/c everything won't be perfect) are over-represented on clapback Twitter

It's jarring when I read it, but it's probably a false positive
27.64b/ Follow-up:
27.65/ This seems to be supported by the facts:

"The lack of violence so far today [Jan 20] is yet more evidence that Trump’s incitement was the central factor."

27.66/ Great way to put it, in more ways than one:

"Twitter now just feeling like doing side quests after beating the main boss"

27.67/ My reaction to a good thread:



about how Donald the person doesn't stick in my mind. My point is because he's noxious, the brain rejects it, he knew that, which is why he machine-gunned himself into our lives

27.68/ Despite my intellectual refutation of "intelligent design"

This is an excellent counter-proof (alert @NatanSlifkin)

27.69/ Great metaphor:

"You know the scene in movies where the protagonists encounter a long unused computer/spaceship/whatever and slowly turn on the switches one by one and it lights up and softly hums and starts running again?

That."

27.70/ One of the masks that fell off in 2016 was just how much the hatred of Hillary Clinton was the concentrated fear of the power of women & it calcified into caricatures of her being soulless/mechanical. It still enrages me.

Anyway, this is lovely:
27.71/ This was fun to follow in real time
27.72/ Did I sleep well last night? Well, I basically crashed around 1pm as relief washed over me

Since Nov 2016 I've been at DEFCON 2 or 1 with my Diaspora Jew jumpiness that demanded I keep one hand on my family, the other on the doorknob at all times
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON
27.73/ BTW, my mother @CypessSM was happy to hear a shout-out to her book "Uncivil Wars" by President Biden in his inaugural address.

Not really. Nice coincidence though.

Aaaaaand shameless plug: smile.amazon.com/Uncivil-Wars-O… Book cover image for "...
27.74/ Re: the scolds I claimed were oversampled (27.64), here's two people I follow who are likely more representative

IMO being a liberal should be about compassion & if it's practiced with scorn/venom it's just another cult
&
27.75/ I totally agree with this thread re: Biden's 'unity' talk.

So many people are surface/#Literalist thinkers and/or don't understand how political & diplomatic language works (possibly, that's oversampled on Twitter/MSM too)

27.76/ This is critical point, especially as a historian: I constantly remind myself that people did not know what would happen next.

The emotions of an era are to the facts like context is to text. It's like the flesh on the dry bones in paleontology

27.77/ Something fun and biblical about this chart. Like how Yaakov Avinu could have schmoozed with someone who witnessed the flood
27.78/ I remarked on this that while 1914 ended the 19th Century, if we play the situation right - and convert America from a white supremacist minority-ruled oligarchy to a true multi-cultural democracy - then the 21st Century can begin this year.

27.79/ This is so true and very well put:

"The sheer extent to which these people [the GOP] break down into blubbering children the second the other side isn't playing defense is honestly incredible"

27.80/ This is great, not only in the DPRK parody genre, but also with that weird 'fanfic' hate brouhaha that squalled through Twitter over the weekend.

27.81/ Great brief thread with an evocative and I think accurate metaphor for how we're all going through a transition from the traumatic #TrumpCrisis years
27.82/ Quick thread on the topic of how to understand Q*non and its adherents (aka a deluded group of violent kooks)

27.83/ I wrote this yesterday about the futile mechanics of toxic masculinity

27.84/ The tedious disdain by the far Left - echoed by TLP types for a fun sardonic horseshoe - about the "impotent Democrats," esp. Schumer. IMO this is facile victim-blaming; the GOP has had the demography & bigoted culture propelling them. Not any more
27.85/ For the record, I did say "shehechiyanu" when Biden was sworn in. My nuclear family did live through this time; wounded in nefesh & guf, but alive. So #ShabbatShalom everyone. Thank God for this.

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More from @JoshuaCypess

Joshua Cypess Profile picture
May 6
199.01/ Week one-hundred and ninety-nine, May 4-10, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 198 below.
199.02/ FYI - I did some research and evidently the real 2015 ad this skit is parodying was about a father sending his kid to the US Army (i.e. the army was presented in the same gauzy way as college).

cnn.com/2015/03/02/opi…
199.03/ This is great.

IMO the 2 best are (1) PIT-BAL b/c both teams are always good, the games always close, violent & have playoff implications. (2) NYG-PHI b/c no matter how good/bad either are the game can go either way & the fanbases HATE each other.
Read 5 tweets
Joshua Cypess Profile picture
May 1
198.01/ Week one-hundred and ninety-eight, April 27-May 3, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 197 below.
198.02/ #ChochmatNashim for #AchareiMot & #Kedoshim 5783. @ChochmatNashim

It's going to be hard updating the 5784 edition before Shabbas, so please enjoy this "classic" version from last year. Divrei Torah from Orthodox women scholars on the parsha.
drive.google.com/file/d/136A4pd…
@ChochmatNashim 198.03/ The jig is up, the news is out, they finally found her... Mazal Tov and congratulations to my wife, Dr. Rebecca Cypess, on her new position as Dean of Stern College and Yeshiva College! BE"H her new position will allow her to help heal academia.
yu.edu/news/yu/yeshiv…
Read 10 tweets
Joshua Cypess Profile picture
Apr 16
196.01/ Week one-hundred and ninety-six, April 13-19, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 195 below.
196.02/ Still holds true (from last year)
196.03/ #NachasAlert: My son has a big article (pages 4-6) in this week's Torah journal from his high school #Metzora-#HaGadol. Enjoy!
drive.google.com/file/d/1uNKU5O…
Read 5 tweets
Joshua Cypess Profile picture
Apr 7
195.01/ Week one-hundred and ninety-five, April 6-12, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 194 below.
195.02/ Happy #Eclipse2024 Day for all who celebrate. Here's an interesting article about the halakhic implications of an eclipse by Rabbi Dov Linzer:
blogs.timesofisrael.com/solar-eclipse-…
195.03/ #Eclipse2024 My extended family went to a place of 100% totality and took this picture a few minutes ago. For me its 90% and can't be photographed (which is one reason I said shehechiyanu). Not paskening for anyone else, but for me this is a religious experience. The total eclipse of April 8, 2024
Read 10 tweets
Joshua Cypess Profile picture
Apr 2
194.01/ Week one-hundred and ninety-four, March 30-April 5, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 193 below.
194.02/ #ChochmatNashim for #Shemini 5784.
@ChochmatNashim
Downloadable PDF with working links to Divrei Torah by Orthodox women scholars on the parsha and other topics of the week. #Shmini #HaChodesh
drive.google.com/file/d/1bFHTfW…
194.03/ This is, 'how you say?, "awesome sauce"
Read 5 tweets
Joshua Cypess Profile picture
Mar 24
193.01/ Week one-hundred and ninety-three, March 23-29, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 192 below. #HappyPurim!
193.02/ This is now my preferred pshat
193.03/ #NachasAlert: Final (so far) tally of times my son leyned Megillah seven times; 3 last night, four times today. Including once for a home-bound Shoah survivor. So proud.
Read 9 tweets

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