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7 Feb, 16 tweets, 5 min read
30.01/ Week Thirty - Feb. 7-12, 2021 - begins here. Week 29 linked below
30.02/ Generally, when there's a debate in American culture to make something that's against halakha legal, I'll davka support its legality b/c (a) more freedom means I'll get to practice my own religion freely & (b) ironically, mitzvah points are given for free willed restraint
30.03/ Hot off the presses from my wife, Prof. Rebecca Cypess
womensongforum.org/2021/02/11/mad…
30.04/ The MLB Network (222 Optimum) is showing right now game one of the 1968 World Series. Bob Gibson's 17K game. Curt Flood, Roger Maris, Lou Brock, Tim McCarver. Wow.
30.04b/ As a follow-up, @jemelehill is spot on here. I told my son the same thing last night: Flood should be in the HOF, for his sporting achievements and for his leadership. He was blackballed and that wrong must be set right.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
30.05/ This was an unintentional political statement. Honestly, there was a sale on tea and we needed to put 'em in a small box and I really can't tell the difference between the flavors, anyway. A small box of Twinings' &q...
30.06/ Honestly, this was pretty clear at the time because they were the absolutely worst liars I've ever seen in a public figure.

I'm glad these coverups are being exposed. We need to shine a light on the whole 4 years of brutality.

nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/…
30.07/ I eventually soured on Seth b/c he was vituperative vs. critics, but I always saw him as an academic whose threads were intended to be a new communicative form. No joke. However, he's miles better than Haberman who laundered Trump's (ym'sh) filth.
30.08a/ As a medical ethicist, I've been advising people to get vaccinated whenever it's offered, even if they think others should go first.

My reasoning is that: (a) the vaccine is supposed to be more effective than even disease-caused antibodies (like I have)
30.08b/ (b) every medically able person should get the vaccine so the order doesn't actually matter if the goal is total population inoculation &

(c) whatever dose a person gets is not taking a dose from someone else, especially given the vulnerable shelf-life
30.09/ Progression of checking pockets before leaving (cumulative)

1901-1950: Where's my wallet?
1951-2000: Where's my car keys?
2001-2020: Where's my cell-phone?
2020-?: Where's my mask?
30.10/ The practical halakha notwithstanding I'm SO GLAD he didn't wear a kippah because defending Trump (ym'sh) is a terrible chilul Hashem and the resultant pictures would have haunted my people for decades.
30.11/ I wonder if they do Purim se'udahs? (I'd suggest a seder as well but that could bring up too many species-based traumatic experiences from the goatiffic collective unconscious)

bbc.com/news/uk-englan…
30.12/ This is correct and the entire point of being frum - and especially when you play on 'God-mode' as Modern Orthodox - is to live life as an example for others, a living Kiddush Hashem. It's the difference b/w Mishpatim (low level) & Kedoshim

30.13/ BTW, happy #LunarNewYear aka Rosh Chodesh Adar. It's the year of the Ox aka six weeks to Pesach.

google.com/search?q=Lunar…
30.14/ I've been trying to fight a cold (I hope) for the past two weeks and it's affected my work and my twittering. Sorry for a sparse set of comments. BE"H I'll do better in Adar :)

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More from @JoshuaCypess

Joshua Cypess Profile picture
3 Feb
1/ Another #Beshalach thread, sparked by the linked article. What do combat exoskeletons have to do with the parsha? The halakhot of cybernetics on Shabbat, of course.

OK, so that's still pretty unclear. It has to do with the manna.

torahmusings.com/2015/05/combat…
2/ Can you do melacha using invisible brain power, basically. Normally, I'd love to delve into how the regnant rabbinic view about gramma (causality) drives me utterly bonkers in its #Literalist mentality, as well as the limited 19th Century view of electricity, but not this week
3/ Cybernetics aka invisible brain power applies to the manna b/c:

"Rav Avraham Walkin ... argued that someone who miraculously cooks through thought or speech violates a biblical prohibition ... [he] proves this from the man (manna) that the Jews ate in the Desert"

cont.
Read 12 tweets
Joshua Cypess Profile picture
3 Feb
1/ Were the Trump (ym'sh) supporters I know always cruel/evil/crazy? IMO, no, and I'd even say to suggest they were has shades of essentialism, an almost biological view of character. Or even physics: that there's potential evil and when it's expressed, it's kinetic evil.
2/ As expected, I see things behaviorally and culturally: they weren't this bad beforehand because:

(a) society kept them in check; Trump (ym'sh) as head of the nation & culture gave permission for previously taboo acts and with the guardrails removed, their impulses went wild.
3/ And (b) as their permission structure/cultural model became threatened, the subconscious recognition that social stigma was about to come crashing down made them more desperate and crazed.

They act and acted like addicts about to lose their fix.
Read 6 tweets
Joshua Cypess Profile picture
3 Feb
1/ I had three mini-classes on #Beshalach over Shabbat (I'm not trapped in the house with my kids... they're trapped with me, heh) and before it's too far in the rear-view mirror, I'll try to get the ideas down here.
2/ First is on the word "chamushim" in Ex. 13:8. Generally it's defined as "armed" (and there's a famous Midrash that I won't bother to deal with) and this article by the phun philologist Mitchell First discusses the major possibilities
jewishlink.news/features/41900…
3/ He prefers a definition that makes the word a cognate from Arabic specifically meaning an army in five parts. The sources for this are the BDB, Cassuto, Daat Mikra, and E. Klein. Please see inside for details. It's suggested that this was an 'ancient army form.'
Read 7 tweets
Joshua Cypess Profile picture
31 Jan
29.01/ Week twenty-nine thread, for Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2021, begins here. Last week's thread (28.01) linked below.

29.02/ Every once in a while, I let the depraved fatalism of the phrase "boys will be boys" just wash over me...
29.03/ Snow still following here in Central NJ, with some swirling wind, allowing me to use the word "snow squalls" at the breakfast table. My 14yo suggested that if the wind is strong enough to dislodge squirrels, it'd be "squirralls of snow." Yup.
Read 42 tweets
Joshua Cypess Profile picture
29 Jan
1/ I try to be thorough and methodical, so here are some great comments from last week that I intended to comment on, or at least catalog, but didn't because (1) the thread was getting too long & (2) I ran out of time
2/
a)
b)
c)
3/ d)
e)
f)
Read 5 tweets
Joshua Cypess Profile picture
29 Jan
1/ Rabbi Ruttenberg is correct that Purim was the transition point when we all felt we were soon/already under siege (how [un] ironic!).

For me though it's parshat Beshalach, this week, that I constantly go back to in my mindscape of "The Before Times"
2/ It's personal, of course.

Last year, this parsha was the Bat Mitzvah for my niece. My family spent Shabbat in White Plains and the whole experience was special and also super-strange (it was in a Conservative temple so I had to juggle going to early minyan etc)
3/ For the past year of pandemic, whenever my mind travels back to "what was normal" I go to that Shabbat. It was with my in-laws, it was a new community, the temple rabbis and I are friends so that made it even more fun/memorable.
templeisraelcenter.org
Read 8 tweets

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