“On Rosh Hashanah, we pray to be inscribed in the book of life,” explains Rabbi Feigenkrantz. “On Yom Kippur, Hashem seals the deal.”
It was a very narrow window of opportunity that affected the rest of the year, so try to stay inspired. Don’t fuck this up, ok? Rabbi Feigenkrantz goes on to elaborate that those who were less fortunate due to absence of merit, overabundance of sins, not praying hard enough, or not bailing out said imbalanced Merit and Sin Sheet with an influx of charitable cash, might end up in the Book of Death instead.
Rosenberg doesn’t understand what all the hype is about. Death didn’t seem so bad, especially if it spared him another round of Elul, Shofar, Slichot, checking your Etrog for spots, or Rabbi Feigenkrantz’s insufferable speeches.
“There are a lot of ways to go,” elaborates Rabbi Feigenkrantz. “Alot.”
God, in his Creative and Loving wisdom, had come up with fire, water, earthquakes, plagues, and The Disease That Shall Not Be Named, just to name a few. There’s a full review of the subject during a particularly inspiring part of davening, and the cantor traditionally cries at that point. The thinking here was that it was not enough for God to just remove you from this world for your inequities, He had to extract just a bit more atonement before you went.
“There are a lot of ways to go,” elaborates Rabbi Feigenkrantz. “Alot.”
Just as a pomegranate is full of seeds, Rabbi Feigenkrantz was full of metaphors and euphemisms. Bad things were “atonement”. Things you didn’t understand were “Kabbalistic”. Bathrooms were The Room That Did Not Have a Mezuza. Wanting things was The Evil Inclination.
Eskimos have 100 words for snow, Judaism has 613 words for things you want but can’t have. The only thing you can have in this life, even if you don’t want it, is Suffering.
In fact, as far as Rosenberg could tell, threatening someone with a grisly death at the tail end of a grisly life didn’t pack much of a punch. It was like telling a prisoner that at the end of their 80 year sentence they’d have to walk back home on foot.
“Now let’s talk about hell,” says Rabbi Feigenkrantz, making sure he exhausted the entire topic of reward and punishment. This was the time of year for whipping a dead chicken.
Judaism doesn’t believe in eternal damnation. Instead, it believes in 12 months of hell in a world that has no measurable time. It’s more of a spiritual washing machine. (Leading Kabbalist recommend mixing Psalms™ hell softener into your experience for better results and a subtle scent of scorched flesh.) After feeling like shit for a while, you’ll be clean, sparkly, and ready for an eternity spent on God’s benevolent lap.
Of course, if you really fuck up, clarifies Rabbi Feigenkrantz, you’re toast. If you do anything on The List of 48 Random Things That God Hates Extra, like sleeping with a menstruating woman or picking a flower on Saturday when there are no witnesses to get you executed, your soul ceases to exist.
Poof.
Rabbi Feigenkrantz scrunches up his nose and nearsightedly peruses the aforementioned list. It was a good list. Solid. Creative. Comprehensive. Leaving little room for success. By the looks of it, heaven wouldn’t be too overcrowded, which was his biggest fear. He’d get his penthouse overlooking hell, as he had prayed so fervently for.
Rosenberg wants a copy of that list, for his own purposes.
“What’s the point of being alive?” he asks pointedly.
Rabbi Feigenkrantz beams over his thicc plastic eyeglass frames. He was prepared for this question. He was prepared for all questions.
“Great question! The Rabbis asked the exact same thing!”
He opened up his Talmud, The Egg Tractate, and started leafing through it.
“And?” probes Rosenberg.
“And what?” Rabbi Feigenkrantz looks up, annoyed.
“And what did they conclude?”
“Who?”
“The Rabbis.”
“Ah, The Rabbis!” says Rabbi Feigenkrantz, instructing the class to turn to Daf 32b, three lines from the bottom.
“They actually disagreed on the matter. Some said it was worth being born, some said it was not. But both are the ever-living word of God.”
Psychedelics have played a key part in my growth and healing past traumas.
When I have spoken about them in the past, more people have asked me about my experiences, and I finally sat down to complied a rough overview of my own journey. Along the way, I tried to sprinkle in some insights which others might find helpful in their own experiments.
First, What Didn’t Work
Me and weed never got along well. First I thought it was my inability to smoke at all. Then I blamed the nicotine. I’d just get nauseous, which is exactly what weed is not supposed to do.
So I bypassed the whole thing and tried edibles, and it was on them that I had my worst trip of all – vomiting, fearing my impending death while feeling like I wasn’t ready to die yet (not sure why), and shitting myself to top it all off.
I moved on and don’t plan on looking back.
Update: I’ve actually healed my relationship with Cannabis through ironically, taking a shitton of it at once while under the supervision of a virtual trip sitter. At this point I really appreciate the effects of this substance, I find it relaxing and it deeply connects me to my body and sexuality.
Alcohol, that socially endorsed drug that Orthodox Judaism feels is totally fine to get 13 years olds blackout drunk on once a year, is highly overrated.
As a friend of mine aptly said, “Getting drunk is borrowing happiness from the future”.
The crowning jewel of that experience was getting way too drunk on a pub crawl of one during my last weeks in Israel. I woke up feeling terrible the next day, but refused to throw up, because I hate throwing up.
I vowed to never get that drunk again, and unlike most resolutions of this nature, I’ve actually stuck to it for the last four years.
The first shroom trip
For me, redemption has come through psychedelics and MDMA, which is not technically a psychedelic.
It started with Shrooms, Psylosybin. I was very anxious before my trip, I was worried about all those “bad trips” I had heard about. In my mind, a bad trip looked like a nightmare that you can’t wake up from.
But I had a skilled guide, who conveyed his own comfort and expertise in every moment leading up to, and during, the experience, and this made all the difference.
Experienced trippers often talk about Set and Setting – you should be in a space that is calm and where you have control, with nature being a great choice; and you should be in a positive mindset. This sets the tone for your whole trip.
People tripping in a party, surrounded by strangers, are setting themselves up for a much risker situation with a myriad of variables they can’t control, a perfect place for paranoia to sneak in and take over.
My first trip was planned for me to a T. A series of curated playlists had been planned for weeks, for three stages of a trip – liftoff, the peak, and the comedown. The music you choose to listen to can have a big impact on the type of trip you have.
I mostly fasted that day, just eating some fruit and juice. The trip was planned for sunset, an inspiring time of day, overlooking a city park from a Jerusalem rooftop.
My guide carefully weighed my dose for me, calculated based off my experience level and body weight. He himself took a larger dose, consuming most of it immediately and leaving some to take later as a “boost” to keep his trip going longer.
We set an intention for the experience – I wanted to discover new things about myself. We ate the shrooms, which don’t taste that great and which can chew on for a long time. And then I meditated for a bit to get into a good mindset.
The whispering grass
The ensuing experience is one of the most memorable of my life. Music never sounded so good. It takes you on a journey, tells you a story. If you’re tripping with another person, you can feel like you’re on a shared journey with them, simultaneously riding with them while also adding your own personal flair.
At some point we went down to the park, carrying our speaker with us. I have never seen grass that green, a neon glow in the moonlight that whispered things to me – things I did not understand, and also understood perfectly.
At time, fears emerged as well. But I let those become part of the experience. I trusted the music to take me to the next stage. This is all part of the journey. This too shall pass. And indeed it does. The ups and downs are all just part of the experience.
I was hooked, but still afraid to trip on my own. It took several more trips, first with others, then by myself, to get comfortable and more casual with the experience. I used to designate 48 hours to a trip, going camping deep in nature or to some rural Airbnbn. Now I can do it with just a few hours to spare during a workweek.
I marvel at the experience you can get for $9 worth of shrooms and a pair of headphones – why fly to another country or buy tickets to a concert, when you can travel to another dimension without leaving your couch?
Recently, I have been experimenting with micro dosing, taking tiny amounts of shrooms every few days. It’s hard to pinpoint, but it does seem to be making a difference – taking the edge off my anxiety, and making the day just a bit brighter and more energized.
I limit myself to tripping about once a month, so as not to build too much of a psychological of physiological dependency. Instead of making it purely recreational, I try to include have a personal growth component as well – escape to a more creative place, or uncover subconscious motivations and patterns I wasn’t aware of. I invite the shrooms to show me something about myself I wasn’t aware of, to share an insight with me, and they generally deliver.
Acid
Next up, Acid. I marvel how such a tiny tiny piece of paper with a drop of LSD in it can take you that far into space.
To me acid is almost clinical. If shrooms are art, acid is science. If shrooms take you on an exciting jeep ride through space, twisting and turning and exploring, acid is like strapping yourself to a rocket and watching the trip unfold from the cockpit.
Whereas with shrooms there’s always the organic variance and concern over how much you took and how potent they are, acid offers a guarantee. You will trip for 10 hours, so no need to worry about that part. It makes for a more controlled experience, but also, in my experience, a more intense one.
My first trip on acid was great. The fucking music. I listened to a bunch of psychedelic rock, to fulfill the stereotype, and it was awesome. The visual hallucinations were amazing. I was looking out a window into a woods, but I was also staring through a space portal into fractals of a distant galaxy.
My second acid trip was my first “bad trip”, or as some prefer to call it, “difficult trip”. It wasn’t what I expected, and that took me by surprise. I expected nightmares, demons emerging from the walls and swallowing me whole. No. Instead, I just felt the worse I had ever felt, emotionally. I was beyond worthless. I was so flat I had no height whatsoever, no justification for existing. And the thing with trips is your sense of time is warped, so you as far as you’re concerned, you’re gonna keep feeling this way forever. Not fun.
It took me coming out of the trip to realize that that was just a bad trip, and now, moving forward, I hope to be better prepared for that flavor of “bad” as well, as unpleasant as it might still prove to be. I have no regrets about that experience, and am glad I had it. It still is a unique experience that pushed the envelope of my humanity and perception of self. It’s as if I emerged stronger and more resilient – I have been to hell and back, you cannot scare me.
That said, for now, I’ve taken a step back from acid. I prefer a more human, organic experience, which I find shrooms provide for me.
MDMA
I have kept the best for last.
I went into my first MDMA (aka M, Molly, Ecstasy, “Rolling”) experience knowing of its potential to heal trauma and the clinical research that had been done in that regard. I had the official playlist from the MAPS institute playing in my ears.
Holy shit. If there is anything close to a magic wand, a mirror to hold up to your life and see reality in its truest form, to me that would be M. The clouds part, and you get absolute clarity on exactly who you are and where you stand in the world.
To me that meant validating just how much shit I had been through in my life. How many difficult situations I was still coping with every day. And within that context, every part of my life made perfect sense. All my flaws were acceptable. All my mistakes, understandable. This, to me, is the foundation of compassion: understanding that it could not have been any other way. And by it I mean everything that ever happened to, or was done by, you or anyone else. Everything just is.
It gives you the strength to power through your darkest experiences. It puts them within a context of a larger being that is you – you are so much bigger than even the worst thing that has ever happened to you.
So you power through it, and it melts away. It’s extremely painful, but you have what it takes, and on the other side you feel cleansed. You purge it, you process it, and you do it completely because for once, there is nothing to fear.
In this place, you can begin to forgive yourself. To understand and forgive others. You find the strength to deal with your darkest memories – one’s you’ve needed to completely suppress just to get through the day.So you can let it rise up and run its course. Instead of sitting there like an immobile impasse, it dissolves into the bigger you.
It’s not gone, it’s integrated.
This is why MDMA is so helpful for healing trauma.
It gives you a break from being in your problem to rising above it.
It shuts down the negative self-talk long enough for you to really accept yourself, shit and all.
I have always had crazy ideas on M, grandiose plans that are guaranteed to succeed, as far as my euphoric mind is concerned. I have since learned to distinguish between the actual ideas, which are often outlandish, and the theme that lies behind them, like an interpretation of a dream.
Do I actually have the ability to be more assertive? To drastically change my circumstances? To transform my life with a few key decisions? Great. Feel the core power of that realization and let that transform you. You don’t actually need to start your own non-profit just yet.
MDMA works by causing a major dopamine dump in your brain. So the next day you may feel hung-over, or extra down. If you’ve processed a ton of shit, you might feel drained for a few days. And research indicates that it is not healthy for your brain. There are several supplements you can take to help with side effects, like 5-HTP for brain health and mood, and Magnesium Citrate for the teeth grinding that often accompanies a trip.
Still, for health reasons, I limit my trips to once every six months, eagerly looking forward to them as turbo-charged leaps in my personal growth journey. In between, I suffice myself with shroom trips, although I always miss that feeling of traumas and limiting beliefs literally melting away.
Bringing it to others
Through my own personal experience of healing past traumas with MDMA, I have become extremely passionate about the efforts of organizations like MAPS to legalize MDMA or psilocybin for clinical applications. I cannot believe that people can easily drink themselves to death but aren’t allowed to experience the life-altering insights of a psychedelic trip.
Of course, much of this stems from the human tendency to take good things and ruin them. Partying on MDMA feels sacrilegious to me, compared to what they could accomplish in a more contemplative setting. It is a crime against humanity to ban it, and it was humanity’s crime to abuse it.
People frequently ask me how they can experience these experiences themselves. Unfortunately MAPS seems to only conducting trials with clinical PTSD cases, the usual trifling problems we face on a day to day don’t count for enough. So we’re forced to replicate these experiences alone. My general advice is to go slowly, maybe start with smaller doses of shrooms, surround yourself with supportive and more experience guides, and invest in yourself outside of the substance you’re consuming.
Also make sure you’re getting your supply from reputable sources. MDMA in particular can be mixed with all sorts of shit. You can buy testing kits to test a small sample of your batch, and if it passes, you can generally assume that the entire batch is ok.
This isn’t a magic bullet. To the degree that you have a meditation practice, for example, andare capable of experience unpleasant sensations in your body without reacting, you’ll be better able to cope with difficult emotions or memories that might arise during a trip. You’ll be able to observe them let them pass, instead of letting them consume you or take you over.
I try to approach these substances with the respect and gratitude that is becoming of gifts that have changed my life.
I have since also explored Ayahuasca, here is an article I have written about that experience.
If one man can kill six million Jews, then one man can save six million Jews.
That mantra, in a nutshell, summarizes the core mission of Aish Hatorah, quoted ad nauseum in conversation and propaganda posters. It also conveniently compares Noach Weinberg to Hitler, so that I don’t have to actually do so. I’m just following orders.
I was raised amidst a spiritual holocaust. Hitler had only killed people’s bodies. Assimilation was killing their souls. It was obvious then, what my purpose in life was. I was to save the Jewish people, under the guidance and leadership of Der Fuhrer.
Other causes are cute. You wanna save the whales? Sure. But, save a non-Jew and a non-Jew is saved. Save a Jew and you’ve saved the next Einstein. We’re here to be a light unto the nations. We thought the world humanity! Ethics! Morality! Abraham taught the world how to be a mensch; we’re an entire people devoted to be role models – we’re Ubermenches!
The metaphor was graphic, insidious, and constantly repeated during my years in the Aish-Jugend kiruv factory. Brainwashing children wasn’t their main focus; Aish never really got the whole child-raising thing down. But I was around for the endless speeches, talks, and articles espousing the dire need of those dying around me.
But what if that wasn’t me? What if I was shy, or didn’t share the vision, or didn’t feel I had what it took?
First of all, fuck you.
Do you, or do you not want to fight for the Vaterland? Have you heard of Meir Schuster? All debates about capability dies when you invoke the Meir Schuster trump card, the way all online debates go south the moment you mention Hitler. Because if shy, timid, can’t-make-eye-contact Meir Schuster made a career out of dragging people away from the Western wall to the nearest yeshiva, so can you.
If he managed to crush his own psyche beneath the weight of the enormity of this responsibility, you can too. And he did it by any means necessary, we recall with a chuckle. Remember that one time he told someone he’d take him to a bathroom, but really brought him to Reb Noach’s office for a 20 minute brainwashing session? What a cheeky bugger! What’s a little lie to save a person’s soul?
Second, you don’t necessarily have to do “front line kiruv”, teaching classes or maneuvering on campuses in your suave polo shirt. We also need people to organize the tape library. Everyone can be part of the mission. An army also needs cooks! Even though, yeah, the real heroes are the guitar playing, tear jerking, charismatic superstars who are coming soon to an event near you.
Don’t even think of just living a simple life. Finding happiness in the day to day, putting one foot in front of the other. Reb Noach would pound his fist on the table during one of his many fiery speeches and call those people zombies. The walking dead. Question your beliefs! And then adopt ours!
Aish Hatorah appropriated meaning itself, setting the standard so high that everything else became bland and colorless. If you weren’t a medic bandaging spiritual wounds, why were you even alive, you fucking fuck? I hope you’re at least having some Shabbos guests over on the weekends!
We had the secret of happiness and meaning in the Torah, and by God we’d either spread that fire through the entire world, or die trying. We were creating a revolution. We were ushering a new era. Mashiach would come and rebuild the 3rd temple and his Reich would last for 1,000 years, or until the world ended, whichever was sooner.
Charedi society never held much threat. They are so backwards, so primitive, that it’s positively quaint. Walk down Meah Shearim and you’ve stepped back into 1880s Poland. You’ve got that old Jewish handwriting. Bare, antiquated walls. Flickering fluorescent bulbs and weird clothes and Yiddish. People who’ve never seen a TV before freaking out about stupid shit. Cool stuff bro, let me take a photo and post it to Instagram in black and white.
Aish was far more insidious. To use a hypnosis term, it fractionated, bringing you back and forth repeatedly between modern western life and “ancient Jewish wisdom”. It blurred the lines, making you feel like it was possible use the internet (aish.com, anyone?) and be a good Jew all at the same time.
It whitewashed all the parts that needed whitewashing – sexism (women have a role, it’s just different!), genocide (it’s an internal struggle against your evil inclination!), homophobia (there’s no prohibition against being gay, you’re just not allowed to act on it!). Ideas were simplified and enumerated into tasty self-help morsels to rival the click-baitiest Buzzfeed article: “48 Ways to Wisdom”, “7 Principles of Intellectual Clarity”, “6 Tips for a Better Marriage (That Don’t Actually Work)” were yours to be savored and shared.
Most importantly, it sold you on an idea that promised to solve the most basic human anxieties with a flick of a switch. They had the secrets to happiness, to meaning, to ethics and morality. And if only you stuck around to make it from Essentials to Intermediate I, you’d see the light.
They made things beautiful.
Metaphorically: ancient parables were repackaged, pop psychology was appropriated (have you made your gratitude list yet?), eloquent English was used to fuck with your mind.
Physically: knowing that a Meah Shearim ghetto would never fly with the western sensibilities of their victims, they built beautiful buildings, served good food, took people on trips (we gotta get people out of their normal headspace!).
They got a testimonial from Bill Clinton. They installed a fucking glass Chihuly sculpture in the mezzanine of their world center. But did you know it’s a metaphor? Just like water can carve away at rock, so too, the fire of Aish Hatorah can sear your soul until there’s nothing left but charred ash and smoldering guilt.
When Reb Noach died, he left a gaping vacuum where his single-minded obsessiveness and personality-crushing fists had been that none of his children could fill; and his cult-leading figure was no longer there to prop up the myriads of dysfunctions that plagued an institution that was built on guilt, brute force, and the illusion of happiness.
If one man can kill six million Jews, then one man can save six million Jews. And if Orthodox Judaism can be compared to a pogrom, chaotically rampaging through the world and crushing souls of small Cheder boys at random, then Aish is fucking Auschwitz, “saving lives” with all the meticulous methodologies that western technology and resources have to offer.
It’s hard to be compassionate when you’re afraid. And charedim are afraid of everything. Of God, of change, of novelty. Growing up, a healthy dose of compassion would have gone a long way, but there was none to be found. Yiras Shomayim, fear of God, is what it was all about.
Sure, there are also words like Rachamim and Chemla, but those words are devoid of depth, and I have negative associations with their connotation. They imply pity, a sustenance of our pathetic selves by an almighty God who has chosen, with a flick of his benevolent wrist, to grant us another day on earth.
The “I vs. Thou” sentiment was everywhere. It wasn’t about who you were, it was about who you weren’t. You weren’t a goy, you weren’t an arab, you weren’t sfardi, you weren’t dati leumi, you weren’t chassidish, you weren’t chabad. Thank you God, for not making a non-Jew, or a woman.
Aish wasn’t much better. I don’t think it’s possible to truly shove your own religion down someone else’s throat if you have compassion – to others, and more importantly, to yourself. To force gay people to be straight. To push people to cut their hair, wear white shirts, dump their non-Jewish girlfriends. I see how hard Aish rabbis worked themselves, how dissatisfied they were with their progress and successes, and I see no compassion.
The bible itself, at least the Old Testament, which is all I can speak for, is full of brutality. Page 2 starts with a murder, and it’s all downhill from there. What’s the value of reading such things, especially as a seven year old? You’re either horrified, or if, as in my case, you’re made to read those verses over 40 times, desensitized.
Where, amongst all the death and destruction and the parlaying of good behaviors in exchange for less gruesome death, can one find some compassion? The Mishna would like to remind you that if you fuck up when you’re 80, you can undo an lifetime of good deeds – so “don’t believe in yourself until the day you die.”
Do not confuse empathy with compassion. The empathy I experienced most of the time felt like someone had read about it in a book, which they probably had. All about active listening: “I’m sorry you feel that way”, “how does that make you feel?” and “Uh huh”’s galore. You know who else sorry? Canada. And they don’t really give a fuck.
To me empathy is what you say. Compassion is what you don’t. With real compassion, more often than not, you’re lost for words. You are in awe of the human experience manifesting before you, and you acknowledge it with your eyes. Silence is usually your best contribution.
I’ve only discovered compassion recently. I was ambivalent towards the word itself and disparaging of the weakness that those who practice it supposedly displayed. Why the fuck would you possibly accept anything that is not The Right Way To Be, TM? And of course, pointing it towards myself was the hardest. MDMA and processing a shitload of trauma have been huge contributing factors to my progress.
I am grateful to those who have modeled it for me; demonstrating it through personal example and having compassion towards me when I had none for myself.
Because I sure as shit had no clue what it looked like.
“There are no atheists in a foxhole,” Noah Weinberg used to love to say, swiftly eradicating all actual atheists who undoubtedly have existed in foxholes.
That statement further disregards all the individuals who became atheists in foxholes, like the blaspheming Rabbi in Elie Wiesel’s Night.
From the moment I lost my religion, and truthfully, even beforehand, I was jealous of the theists all around me.
In moments of debate, I have conceded that the world is complex enough to imply the possibility of a higher intelligence that Created All The Things.
However, this very argument makes the assumption that there is a humanly comprehensible Plan for Creation that much more absurd.
More laughable still is the presumption that the plan revolves around us, that we could possibly know what it is, or that it involves the order in which we put on our shoes.
I watch as the world goes to shit, and all around me are promises of salvation. Pledge $18 to charity. Pray harder. Write a letter in a scroll. Stop speaking in synagogue, fool. Download an app that practically prays for you.
I have no such comforts at my disposal. Armed with just a Buddhist worldview and meditation, I get to sit for an hour with immeasurable pain, over and over again. I get to stand daily at the edge of the universe and stare intently into the sheer pointlessness of it all. Inviting myself to feel it all as deeply as possible.
Yay, even more pain.
This too shall pass. Not just a nice ring for seminary girls on the way to the Kotel. Everything you ever loved, your children, your parents, toilet paper, will disappear someday. We all die, at some point in our lives. Observing the transient nature of all things might be the antidote to suffering, but it comes by diving headfirst into the pain of existence.
I know that this too shall pass, but goddamit it feels like it will last forever.
I have been accused of becoming an atheist out of a place of comfort-seeking. “You’re just doing it to get laid with a guilt-free conscience”.
I assure you, with social distancing in place, I am getting laid even less than I usually don’t.
Theists get to revel in this being a sign of the End of Days, an indication that the Messiah is parking his donkey in the driveway as we speak (just as he has done during both Gulf wars and a thousand other times before).
Theists bid loved ones farewell, knowing that they are going on to a better place, will be looking down at you from above while advocating to God on your behalf, and will very shortly resurrect again so that we can all eat more cholent by the pool.
Which takes more courage? Constructing meaning out of the meaningless, dismissing death itself as just an illusion? Or letting the pointlessness of all things wash over you and getting out of bed in the morning anyway?
The world is a beautiful place. It’s also downright fucking terrible. I believe no one misses pleasure they never experienced, but we all know what suffering feels like the moment we have to squeeze through a vagina that is a lot smaller than our head. And it’s all downhill from there.
To never exist is to miss out on something you don’t know you’re missing, alongside a boatload of pain. I think I could not-live with that.
The logical, unpopular conclusion to this line of reasoning is, stop having kids. Once they are born, they will quickly get attached enough that they never want to leave this Godforsaken place. Life is an addiction, and you get hooked with your first breath.
But if you asked your unborn child if they’d like to get dragged cruelly out of blissful non-existence, they’d probably reply with the ubiquitous sass that is so common of unborn children, the original generation X: “Nah bro, I’m cool.”
It takes great strength to resist our biological urge to perpetuate the pointless circle of life. A lot of self-control to not succumb to the selfish urge to see more little versions of yourself bumble around on this planet, or worse, take care of you when you’re old.
I made that mistake twice.
Then I put my dick where my mouth is and got a vasectomy.
I had more fun making this than I did in a long time. Something about drawing attention to individual nuances of the bullshit, framed in the context of how interchangeable any of the responses can be with any of the prompts.
Scroll through the options below to create your own pairs, or refresh the page to generate some random combinations. You can download the entire set of cards here for free.
This idea turned into a real life print edition as a result of a successful crowdfunding campaign, which was also featured in Zman Eretz Yisroel and the Yerushalaim Post. This game is in no way affiliated with that other card game, their legal team could not impress this upon me strongly enough, and I am passing that information on to you.
After successfully shipping 150 cards to the original Indigogo backers, we’ll be doing additional print runs in smaller batches. Sign up below to be notified about flash print runs.
What are your favorites? Got any card suggestions of your own?
Judaism teaches that our interpersonal relationships are just a key to relating to God, especially our romantic ones. So, capitalizing on the bestselling book that opened people’s eyes to the fact that not all people are exactly the same, here’s our appropriation of this pop psychology masterpiece.
The first thing to realize is that the way you want love
communicated to you, is not the way your partner wants love communicated to
them. Therefore, this book is divided into two parts – how God wants you to
show Him love, and how you might want love expressed to you. Remember, it’s
possible to have more than one language that speaks to you.
God
Here’s how God likes to experience love:
Receiving gifts – oh yeah! From animal sacrifices to bread offerings to first fruits, God looooves gifts, and his favorite gifts involve food. God is a real foodie. If He had Instagram, you know what kind of pictures would be on there.
Quality time – God loves quality time! He expects at least 3 hours a day of prayer, but if you’re a guy he’d also like you to spend the rest of your waking AND sleeping hours repeating things he’s said. God expects more of His homosexual relationships. Can’t blame Him!
Words of affirmation – God is big on this one too! Remember all that quality time from the previous paragraph? There’s no better way to spend it than by telling Him how Great He Is. He’s written scripts to make it easy for you, no need to come up with them on your own (although of course you’re welcome to!). Just repeat them three times a day and you’re golden. Some his favorite phrases are “King of the World”, “Resurrector Of The Dead”, and “The Kind One”.
Acts of service – yes yes yes! God has a list of 248 things he’d like you to do for Him. Don’t worry, not all of them need to happen today, lol. Only most of them. The rest are on his wish list for when He rebuilds his temple (hopefully soon, fingers crossed!). God does prefer acts of service from the men in his life though. He’s more content with the women to just sit there and not fuck anything up.
Physical touch – nope. God’s not big on this one. Maybe it’s because everything he touches instantly turns to ash? Whatever the reason, if you want to show God some love, stick to the top four. In fact, your average hour long prayer session includes quality time, words of affirmation, and acts of service all wrapped into one! See? It’s easy to keep your relationship with God puttering along merrily.
You
Ok, but relationships are a two way street, right? Here’s how God can show YOU love depending on what your love language is.
Receiving gifts – you’re in luck! Life itself is a gift. Every breath you take is a gift. God is positively showering with gifts. If you focus on that as opposed to the times you stubbed your toe or your dog died, your relationship will grow stronger every day
Quality time – God is always there for you, listening. He’s got nothing more important than listening to you, and, any time you feel like it, you can just start schmoozing. He’s not big on the active listening though. Best to imagine Him as the strong silent type, really.
Words of affirmation – nope, this one really doesn’t work well for God. You know he thinks very highly of you. Loves you like his son (his only son, if you’re Jewish). He definitely wrote that to you a while back, and you can re-read the letters if it’ll make you feel better. But he’s not about to constantly repeat himself, or give you feedback on how good a job you’re doing. He appreciates your efforts, but he’s not about to make a big deal about them right now.
Acts of service – every time goes out of his way to make the light turn green for you, to make that semi-trailer crash into the divider instead of your car, all of that minute orchestrating of your daily life, is an act of service. I hope you appreciate this! If this is your love language of choice, you’re probably feeling really loved right now.
Physical touch – nope again. Just as God doesn’t want you to touch Him, so too he doesn’t want to touch you. I mean, he’s all around you so I guess he’s touching you through the air and your shirt and stuff, but it’s not the same. When a human only gets that kind of touch we call them “single” and “alone”.
So yeah, God has lots of ways of showing you love, but if
your love languages are word of affirmation of physical touch you’re kind of screwed,
and quality time is a bit meh. So buy this book today and transform the way you
relate to God (if you’re one of the lucky few who happen to be born with the
right preference)!
My favorite talmudic anecdote from a gemarah in Shabbat somewhere around daf 134ish.
Paraphrased loosely:
“Should a snake crawl into a woman’s vagina – which they are inclined to do because in the sin of Genesis the snake slept with Eve and injected evil into her bloodstream – how should we get it out?
The woman should stand on two separate barrels with her feet spread. Light a fire below her cooch and roast some meat. Stand by with a pair of tongues. When the snake, tempted by the luscious smells, inevitably pokes his head back out, grab the motherfucker. Done.”
My very first essay against Judaism, sparked by the story of Rabbi Meir Pogro’s various follies.
I am very angry right now.
My frustration with Judaism lies in its lack inability to transform you as a person, no matter how much Torah you supposedly study. The recently exposed scandal of Rabbi Pogrow’s behavior, and dozens like it, are shining examples of learned men and practitioners of the faith who remain untouched — or even corrupted — by the religion they follow.
We all know many unhappy or evil religious people. We all know very happy and moral non-religious people. What I’m arguing is that there is no correlation.
First off, let me say that I consider myself knowledgeable enough in Jewish thought to tell the difference between Jews and Judaism, and all my issues are with Judaism itself, even if they are sparked by a Jew’s behavior.
Yes, there are many refined Jews. And the Torah has its share of best practices that can add to your well-being. But it’s not systematic, it’s not readily available, and it packaged with a huge amount of outdated BS. Ideas that inflate your ego, inspire you to judge, and entice you to kill, if you could get away with it.
The trigger, not the source
In the Pogrow case, there are two very important nuances about what’s bothering me:
1. I’m much more bothered by the fact that others around him tolerated him as a person than with his own behavior. Aish is supposedly an institution that guides you to become a better human being and yet the highest level of leadership bring in someone who is clearly an asshole (this was apparent way before the current news item) — stating unequivocally that rote study and knowledge is more important than the supposedly essential character development.
2. Judaism has the capacity to disable one’s internal sense of right and wrong in place of an external source. Thus, if you’re not knowledgeable enough, you’re afraid to criticize a Rabbi’s douchy behavior because “maybe there’s something you don’t know about”. Similarly, a brand new ba’al teshuva can go and judge people whose lifestyle he had no problem with only a few months before.
Some people cite Judaism’s contribution to morality, life guidance, relationship advice and happiness. My personal experience has been different: I see a morality that is flawed on many aspects such as the value of (non-Jewish) life, democracy, or women’s rights. I see very little guidance as far as relationships or happiness. I see a deferment of many of life’s biggest challenges – current events, suffering – to a future time after we die or the messiah shows up.
And it has been my own personal experience that because of the expectation that I do get guidance in these very areas, that I am so bitterly disappointed today.
Everything important is missing
When examining my own emotions regarding the Pogrow case, I realized what really was bothering me: it was the Judaism itself that he was supposedly an expert on.
My criticism of Judaism’s capacity to transform you into a better person is twofold:
1. The information that is genuinely helpful is hard to find or implement, which is the last thing someone needs when they’re seeking direction or growth in life.
2. That helpful information is few and far between and drowned in a huge amount of at best irrelevant or at worst harmful information.
What’s the point of following the Torah if you’re trying not to be an asshole? Just go to the self-help section of the library. At least there it’s condensed.
It’s Torah that’s supposed to teach you how to be a good person — in preparation for being the good person that you need to be to study Torah. That alone is an impossible cycle.
(I have met Jews whose religiousness is a much more trivial part of their lives, and who therefore have fewer expectations. It is the respect I afforded Judaism and the central role I expected it to play in my life that paradoxically made me so frustrated)
Let it be noted that I don’t admire much of the secular world either. The educational system, for example is screwed up pretty much everywhere and leaves people with little preparedness for the real world. The entertainment industry and much of technology as well, merely serves to destroy or waste people’s lives.
But I think for me the biggest issue is that they never claim to be anything more than that. They don’t give themselves grandiose claims or titles – and if they did, I would have the same issues with them as well.
It’s all about how
Here’s my point: everyone, in every religion, and every part of the world, will emphasize how important it is to be a good person, a nice person, before anything else.
Derech eretz kadma latorah, etc. etc. ad nausem.
But where, practically, do you learn how to do that? How much of the Torah is devoted to your person growth? Where do you learn to be that good person that you’re supposed to become before you learn Torah?
My issue is that the Torah spends much more time telling you what not to do than how to transform into the person who is capable to not do it.
You’re taught Torah from the moment you learn to speak, so that doesn’t leave much room for before. And you’re taught that anything but Torah is neutral at most and probably has some flaw mixed in somewhere.
So really it’s Torah that’s supposed to teach you how to be a good person – in preparation for being the good person that you need to be to study Torah. That alone is an impossible cycle.
The proof is in the priorities
And then, like I mentioned above – proportionally, how much of the Torah is devoted to telling you how to be a refined person: pirkey avos, a few constantly quoted psukim, and the mussar movment, invented 200 years ago?
Contrast that with endless lists of people you can’t sleep with, punishments you’re eligible to receive for screwing up, numbers of Jews in the desert, what colors of sheep Jacob owned, and who should be killed for doing what, and you’ll find an anthology that seems to have its priorities in a very different place.
The Torah doesn’t really tell you how to work on your middos. And working on your middos is a very trivial value if you look at the daily life outlined by the 613 mitzvos. People say things like “without mussar and cheshbon hanefesh, it is nearly impossible for the Torah alone to change a person.” So how come so little of it is devoted to that?
I understand that anyone can fail. I am not even judging Orthodox Jews who do bad things. My issue is that the Torah spends much more time telling you what not to do than how to transform into the person who is capable to not do it. It is one thing to tell people what not to do, it’s another to guide them in how to avoid doing it. This guidance exists in the world, and it bothers me that it doesn’t seem to be in Torah.
I’ll give you a specific example.
Meditation has changed my life. And I learned it from Buddhism. For a long time I used to apologetically explain that Judaism has certain references to meditation as well. But now I say no – something this important needs to be spelled out clearly, repeatedly, in a practical way. If it is not, it’s as if it isn’t there, and the Torah has failed as a “guidebook for living”. I believe that if it is truly timeless and written by God, then it is fully capable as being a relevant and easy to comprehend as Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits.
What I take from my own experience is to not believe in any system, or any person. But rather look only inward to find my own truth.
We all know many unhappy or evil religious people. We all know very happy and moral non-religious people. What I’m arguing is that there is no correlation. If you want to follow Judaism because you believe it’s correct, that’s a debate for another time. But if you call it “wisdom for living” or the “tree of life,” then I will have to disagree.
In the beginning, man created God. And he thought it would provide him some answers.
But bigger and better questions popped up instead.
Me.
If you think of God as means to explain so much of our the world that we don’t understand, you’ll find that it definitely creates some answers, but opens up a lot of new questions.
Yes, it’ll make death less scary, because you’re going on to a better place.
Yes, you’ll be able to infuse a lot more meaning into a seemingly meaningless existence.
Yes, you’ll have the implied comfort of knowing that it’s all part of some grand plan.
But you’ll also have new questions:
What does he really want from you, right now?
Why in the hell does he give cancer to babies and dementia to people who are doing everything right?
Why, really, did He need to create any of this?
Both approaches require you to grapple with difficult emotions.
Believing can lead to anger and resentment at an unresponsive God. It requires a theological leap to explain why bad things happen to good people.
Not believing in God requires grappling with a seemingly meaningless existence and a perpetually approaching End of it All. It means not having a good explanation of what existed before the world was created.
But if I need to take leaps or live with unanswered questions, I’d rather experience, and come to terms with, negative emotions that don’t include a dysfunctional deity.
