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The 5 Spiritual Love Languages

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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!
  3. 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”.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.

  1. 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
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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)!

Torah Tidbit #1: The Fucking Snake

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.”

The Trouble With Judaism

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.

There is no God, Only Bigger and Better Questions

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.

God Sent Me a Box of Bow Ties

I wrote God a letter.

Dear God. I just want you to know how much you mean to me. I’ve felt things towards you that I haven’t felt in a long time. I feel giddy. I can’t eat or sleep. I’m constantly thinking about you.

To be honest, I’m in awe to be in your presence. I feel so unworthy, and the thought of you even reading this letter seems surreal. You reassured me that you will read it, and I am truly touched by this.

Yours,
Shalom Tzvi

In response, God sent me a box of bow ties.

They were not exactly my style, and I don’t usually wear bow ties. But I did appreciate the gesture.

So I wrote another letter:

Dear God.

I just want to be upfront, because I feel that it’s the best approach. I love you. It’s hard for me to admit it so openly, I feel very vulnerable doing so. I feel like I’m opening myself up to rejection, but I’d rather bring it up, and hear your feeling towards me in response.

The bow ties were really nice, by the way. But to be honest, I’d rather just hear from you than get gifts. I know you’re really busy, but if you could spare time for even a quick conversation, you have no idea how much that would mean to me.

Love,
Shalom Tzvi

In response, God sent me a carefully wrapped box full of horseshit and a bouquet of roses.

* * *

Here’s the thing.

There’s a commonly shared idea in Jewish thought, an idea I was raised on, that relationships are forged by similarity. To that end, Torah and the Jewish tradition are there to help you become more like God, and therefore deepen your relationship with Him/It.

This, from my personal experience, is bullshit. (Personal experience is all we can go by in the world. Also, there’s a well-accepted idea that all worldly phenomena and experiences, especially romantic relationships, are there to teach us about relating  to God. See Song of Songs for a particularly sexy example).

You want to build intimacy? Stare into someone’s eyes for 30 seconds.

Want to feel closer to a person? Share your feelings with them and have them do the same to you.

Want to not have a relationship? Make sure it’s one-sided and the only response you get from the Other is vague actions, subject to interpretation.

Similarity has almost nothing to do with it. Would you really like to marry a clone of yourself?

“Ah,” you say. “This is a sad, sad reality of our generation. We are so distant from God.”

You may appreciate some aspects of similarity in a relationship. But you’ll probably appreciate the areas they balance you out as well.

So much of a relationship is about either shared experience, instant chemistry, or a combination of both. When is the last time you saw someone evolve to a point where they became suited for another person (in compatibility, not just in maturity)?

People say they feel they have a relationship with God. God tells them things. I assume they are not schizophrenic, and that God tells them things either via physical signals or internal intuition.

This is not a relationship I want to have.

Some sort of monarchist, idolizing, Stockholm syndrome phenomenon.

Would you be content with a father who sent you a box of chocolates every time you asked for one? Would you be happy with a spouse who conveyed their disapproval by passive (or not so passive) aggressively smacking you about until you finally, hopefully, get it right?

“Ah,” you say. “This is a sad, sad reality of our generation. We are so distant from God.”

Always the convenient generation bashing.

Did anyone in this generation do anything to deserve being born into this generation? To have a relationship experienced entirely through a one way mirror?

And frankly, hasn’t it always been this way? Hasn’t mankind been lamenting their fall from heaven across cultures and since the beginning of time?

And then, if you really think about it, is man that responsible for his actions? Relative to God, isn’t the most powerful person just a small, fumbling child gesturing towards his parent?

At the root of it all, it’s God, if He does exist, that set this whole thing up: a one-sided relationship where you stumbling in the dark with the burning desire to return to your Source, to achieve emotional and spiritual completeness.

This cruel and distant behavior on left me angry. I would never tolerate such a relationship with a human, and don’t see why I should lower my standards for an all-powerful deity.

I’ve told him as much. I’ve shared my feeling with him on the subject. Plus, being omnipotent, he’s heard me talking about it with others.

But His response, as far as I can tell, has been the same as when I professed my undying devotion.

Another box of bow ties.

Only the Good Stuff

The book cover that started it all. Looking back almost three years to the original comment, I see that I actually independently came up with many of these original ideas.

Other titles I can currently come up with include:

  • “Why? answers to life’s biggest questions (that just create new questions instead)”
  • The Zebra Effect (why God is actually good with bad stripes and not the other way around)”
  • “Unpretentious: just because we’re the CEO’s of the universe doesn’t mean that cleaning toilets isn’t a great job as well”
  • “Ask me anything – and you’ll get the same 3 answers

Happy

I think this one actually best expresses the issue that bothers me the most.

Current Weather in Hell

Hell
light snow
30.1 ° F
30.1 °
27.8 °
93 %
2.9mph
75 %
Mon
38 °
Tue
39 °
Wed
37 °
Thu
40 °
Fri
36 °

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