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cremainsI had a dream about a game my friends used to play in elementary school, where we would each represent a planet or some sort of space force and conduct diplomatic relations with each other by passing notes. In the dream, I met my best friend from that era, Becky, on a bus in Sweden, and she told me all about how they were still playing the game. Her new people were a race of people whose spaceships were gorgeous, chameleon-coloured squid.
I came up with something, too. Back in the day my group were called the Mavadonians, so the new dream ones were called Neo-Mavadonians, and they were subsistance farmers on a little planet. They had no great ambitions and no serious troubles, as they were ruled by a supercomputer who regulated everything for them and protected them. For their govenment, they would elect their version of a prime minister; the name of the position was called the First Enemy, in the style I guess of the title First Lady. The job of the First Enemy was to design hostile scenarios for the supercomputer so that it could prepare for and protect against situations which, being a computer, it couldn't imagine or invent. For example, the First Enemy would write for it that the local wolf species was way overpopulating and encroaching on the townships. Since the neo-Mavadonians met the squid people the First Enemy had to prepare all kinds of space scenarios, which was very hard going because they had never contemplated threats of such great magnitude before.
***
Last week was ass and I can't imagine that this is going to be any better. Work is so horrible and I don't have the patience even to explain what silliness is going on there; but if only I wasn't unbelievably poor I would quit, and quit in style; in my imagination I would do that "Oh wait, I've got something in my pocket for you" routine and then give everyone hydraulic middle fingers. Combined with the stress of everything else, I just want to stay under the bed the whole day.
Weirdly, one of the few highlights has been finally finding the Teimani synagogue that is the only place on earth that uses the same sidur and customs as I do and is if possible they even more obsessed with Rambam, the Teimani equivalent of Justin Beiber. It was awesome. I hate women's sections, but at least this one was filled with Talmud volumes and other books that it is culturally assumed you have to be both smart and educated to read, including of course shelves and shelves of Rambam. Most women's sections have no books at all or just little collections of psalms. If only I could get them to read some serious feminist literature, it would really be my dream place.
This kind of Teimani is a breakaway group called the Darda'im. They are very into doing things as they were at the time of the Gemara, in love with science, and huge sceptics. Here is how one person explained it to his kids:
My favourite part of this is the illustration of how scepticism doesn't have to lack imagination.
The one thing that's a little contradictory is that, as they say, one of their goals is to be as Gemara-y as possible, yet the Gemara talks all the time about necromancers, chicken-footed demons, cat placentas, post-divorce liquor store sorcery, etc. There are intellectually honest ways of reconciling this (for example, the demons occupy the exact same role in Gemara society as germs do in ours) but it's not a walk in the park.
So if anybody asks, I am an honourary Darda'ith.
I came up with something, too. Back in the day my group were called the Mavadonians, so the new dream ones were called Neo-Mavadonians, and they were subsistance farmers on a little planet. They had no great ambitions and no serious troubles, as they were ruled by a supercomputer who regulated everything for them and protected them. For their govenment, they would elect their version of a prime minister; the name of the position was called the First Enemy, in the style I guess of the title First Lady. The job of the First Enemy was to design hostile scenarios for the supercomputer so that it could prepare for and protect against situations which, being a computer, it couldn't imagine or invent. For example, the First Enemy would write for it that the local wolf species was way overpopulating and encroaching on the townships. Since the neo-Mavadonians met the squid people the First Enemy had to prepare all kinds of space scenarios, which was very hard going because they had never contemplated threats of such great magnitude before.
***
Last week was ass and I can't imagine that this is going to be any better. Work is so horrible and I don't have the patience even to explain what silliness is going on there; but if only I wasn't unbelievably poor I would quit, and quit in style; in my imagination I would do that "Oh wait, I've got something in my pocket for you" routine and then give everyone hydraulic middle fingers. Combined with the stress of everything else, I just want to stay under the bed the whole day.
Weirdly, one of the few highlights has been finally finding the Teimani synagogue that is the only place on earth that uses the same sidur and customs as I do and is if possible they even more obsessed with Rambam, the Teimani equivalent of Justin Beiber. It was awesome. I hate women's sections, but at least this one was filled with Talmud volumes and other books that it is culturally assumed you have to be both smart and educated to read, including of course shelves and shelves of Rambam. Most women's sections have no books at all or just little collections of psalms. If only I could get them to read some serious feminist literature, it would really be my dream place.
This kind of Teimani is a breakaway group called the Darda'im. They are very into doing things as they were at the time of the Gemara, in love with science, and huge sceptics. Here is how one person explained it to his kids:
One Shabbat, the kids asked me why they can not do magic like Harry Potter.
I told them it was because their father is a Darda'i!
What is a Darda'i?
A Darda'i is a person that just by getting close to a wizard makes the wizard lose his strength and became a regular guy. Even the great wizard like Dumbledore, respect to him, if Dad gets close, soon will become a simple man on the street. Just by Dad looking at him, Groundskeeper Hagrid will get smaller and smaller, just like a child. Even Lord Voldemort, that they don't mention his name, can not get close to Dad! So it's not a good idea to take your dad on a trip to England, since if he only gets close to the Hogwarts School of Wizardry, the school right away will become a regular school for everything. It would even be dangerous, because everyone who plays Quidditch would fall to the ground and Madame Pomfrey cannot take them to her clinic, because she too will lose all her magic.
Then the kids asked me: how I can do all these great and wonderful things?
I answered: I studied with the great Rabbi Yosef Qapah, my teacher, and he taught me all these things.
Then the question is whether I can teach them as well?
I answered: most definitely!
- "Harry Potter in the Land of the Dardai'm"
My favourite part of this is the illustration of how scepticism doesn't have to lack imagination.
The one thing that's a little contradictory is that, as they say, one of their goals is to be as Gemara-y as possible, yet the Gemara talks all the time about necromancers, chicken-footed demons, cat placentas, post-divorce liquor store sorcery, etc. There are intellectually honest ways of reconciling this (for example, the demons occupy the exact same role in Gemara society as germs do in ours) but it's not a walk in the park.
So if anybody asks, I am an honourary Darda'ith.
