Adolescence

Inspired by this FB meme:



Interesting argument: that adolescence is basically a modern construct forced upon the teenagers who would otherwise grow up much faster. So, kids are stuck in this weird limbo, where their normal neural development tells them to start becoming adults, but in their lives they are forced (by the parents and the society) to remain kids. Result: the rebellious (or "troubled") teenager phenomenon.

Historically, people behaved like adults right after the start of puberty. In Jewish communities, people would get married at 14. (Both boys and girls. The founder of Chabad movement, Alter Rebbe, got married at 16.) People just state the fact that "teenagers of today are not like the teenagers of back in the day", but where did this dichotomy come from? Furthermore, we see now even 30-year-olds who behave like teenagers. (I won't mention our government and its spending habits.)

Now, since I am a libertarian, I have to blame the government, right?.. :) Well, when the government made it its job to protect kids from "harsh realities of everyday life" (read: adulthood) like working and defined "childhood" as "before 18/21", it created this phenomenon.

Right? If someone is going to become an adult at the age of 14-15, he has to be able to get a job, get his own apartment, marry, drink, smoke and do whatever he wants, taking full responsibility for his life and be treated as an adult (which includes equal respect for his freedoms) both by his parents and the society.

But if he can't get a job (and minimum-wage laws don't help: they tend to increase unemployment among the lowest-paid wage earners, since the minimum wage is now above their marginal profit for the employers), he is forced to live with his parents. And, of course, "my house, my rules". Adulthood out of the window.

He has all the exact desires (all the same "pursuits of happiness") as all the adults. He wants to make his own choices in education, employment, hobbies, recreation, and relationships. But the society forbids them to him (through its social norms or its laws). If he is free-spirited (read: adult) enough to pursue them, he is labeled as a rebel or a criminal.

Note how kids who grow up on the street tend to be more adult in many areas than the kids who live with their parents until they go away to college. These 14-year-olds have to survive and support themselves (and, sometimes, their little siblings). Those come home to a cooked dinner and then go to their rooms to their playstations. (Also look at the 18-year-old shluchim and shluchos who go to Taiwan or India or Madagascar and start their own Chabad Houses, creating communities around them. Most Americans look at them in awe. I've heard many 30-year-old women say: "I could not run a Chabad House and take care of two kids the way that Chaya [21 years old] does.")

I am not arguing that we should throw the teenagers on the street. Just like I am not arguing that we should throw 18- (or 25-) year-olds on the street. My point is that if the society recognized teenagers' equal legal/societal rights and offered them employment opportunities, they would "grow up" just like the kids living on the street. Except they would not be living on the street; they would be doing all the jobs that modern college kids do and living in cheap apartments with roommates.

What about education? First, I don't think the current "education program" is for everyone. People should be free to choose work or education at their own pace. But even for those destined for the school–college (–Ph.D.?–post-doc?) career, living on their own (and supporting themselves through work, internships, or scholarships) should be a choice. For that, again, we must abolish all economic measures that limit teenagers' employability (minimum wage laws, etc.) and recognize their equal legal rights to everything.

Not to mention that the government-funded mass education facilities very likely exacerbate the problem. I've gone to a public high school for three years (my 13th to 16th years of life; most Americans' 14th to 18th). Quick description: feed-forward cycle of idiocy. Teachers treat students as idiots; the students behave as idiots and treat teachers as idiots. And the cycle continues.


Bottom line: you want the teenagers to grow up? Start respecting them as adults.

Spiritual timelessness of Judaism. Special days of Kislev

(source)

A repost:

In one of his shiurim on Chanukah (listen also to this shiur on the whole month of Kislev), Rabbi Paltiel explains that time is also a creation. Besides the time that is bound to space (which Einstein’s theories of relativity talk about), there is a more general, “background” time. Every moment of this time has its unique spiritual energy — Sunday has one type of energy, Monday another, etc.

This explains why certain holidays in Jewish history came and went, and other holidays remained. The particular day on which a particular holiday happened had its unique spiritual energy. The holidays with “universal” spiritual energies are still celebrated by Jews. For instance, the 15th of Nissan (the day when Jews left Egypt) had an energy of liberation, redemption from slavery, overcoming of one’s limitations and so on. This is why Pesach is celebrated throughout generations — not (only) to commemorate the leaving of Egypt, but mainly because the day itself is liberating; the same spiritual energy that allowed Jews to leave Egypt many years ago on this day appears again every year.

This applies to any holy day on Jewish calendar. On Rosh HaShana (New Year), the source of energy that allows the world to exist is renewed. By celebrating Rosh HaShana, we are celebrating literal rebirth of the Universe.

Shabbos is not merely a day to commemorate the fact that G-d “rested” (i.e., did not create the world actively); on this day, the stretch of time itself (and as a result, the world that exists in this time) is holy. The same mode of creation that was during the first Shabbos — through “thought” as opposed to “speech” — happens every Shabbos. It is as if on Shabbos we did not exist “outside” of Hashem, but inside His “mind”.

Rabbi Paltiel gives another example. In Sha’alos veTeshuvos min haShomayim (“Questions and Answers from Heaven”), a book in which halachic questions are asked “beyond the Curtain” and answers are recorded, at the end of one such teshuva, it is written: “Today is 19th of Kislev, Tuesday, and it is a day for celebration”. For a thousand years it was not known why 19th of Kislev was a happy day — until 1799, when on a Tuesday, 19th of Kislev, the first Rebbe of Chabad Chassidus, R’ Shneur Zalman of Lyadi (“Alter Rebbe”) was released from prison. This day became known as “New Year of Chassidus”, and it is generally recognized amongst Chabad Chassidim as a day instrumental for dissemination for Chabad Chassidus, which is a recipe for bringing Mashiach.

Yud-Tes Kislev is a lot bigger than Chabad. It is not New Year of Chassidus Chabad; it is New Year of Chassidus. In Yud-Tes Kislev lies spiritual victory of Baal Shem Tov. Baal Shem Tov was a special soul that came from heavens to introduce new, special type of Judaism, and it was being judged. [...] And the miracle of Yud-Tes Kislev effected not just Chabad Chassidim, but all Jews. [Listen on for explanation.]

The same is true regarding Chanukah. The day of 25th of Kislev has the special spiritual energy of renewal and dedication of Beis HaMikdosh. When the Mishkan was built, it was ready to be dedicated on the 25th of Kislev. Moses was told by G-d to wait until Adar, but the energy of this day revealed itself when it came time (on the same day) to renew and rededicate Beis HaMikdosh after victory over Greeks.

So, it is true that we celebrate the historical occurence of each holiday, but this occurence is but a keili, a vessel for the spiritual energy behind the occurence. We are really celebrating the spiritual occurence of a particular day (that is happening on that day), but since we live in the physical world and cannot “grasp” the spiritual events in their purity (they are beyond this world) — nor should we do this, because the ultimate purpose of creation is making a dwelling place for G-d in this, physical world, — we “dress” the spiritual energy of a particular day in the “vessel” of a particular holiday, with its history, customs, special prayers, symbolism, etc.

That is why Purim, for instance, could be meaningful even for Jews in the middle of Holocaust. While the historical relevance of this holiday was seemingly distant and reversed by contemporary events, the spiritual relevance (Purim is higher that Yom Kipur, as the Lubavitcher Rebbe explains in one of his ma’amorim) was nevertheless there.

* * *

This brings me to the question often asked about the “reason” of mitzvos. I will give a relatively obscure example. At the end of having a meal, before saying the main after-blessing for the meal, it is customary to wash one’s fingertips and pass the fingers over one’s lips. Men do this (usually, using a special cup and plate that is passed around the table); women do not. The explanation given on a nigleh (“revealed” or legal) level is that this custom was instituted to protect someone who had just eaten from the salts present in the food that may be harmful for one’s skin.

The question why this customs does not apply to women has several answers. One of them is that traditionally, women were involved with preparing food and therefore washed their hands anyway. Another is that the act of publicly washing one’s hands at the table is an act of doing something normally private in public, with the table’s attention drawn to oneself. Because privacy is more important for women than for men, it is generally recognized to be improper for the former to participate in attention-drawing events (which includes other activities, in which women normally do not participate, such as holding a public office, being a Rav, getting an aliyah, etc.).

Today, if we see in this custom nothing but a medical warning, it may seem somewhat irrelevant, to say the least. It may be surprising why this custom survived, while other, seemingly more important customs of past did not. The same logic that applies to holidays, however, applies to customs and mitzvos. They have both physical (historical, ritual, pragmatic) and spiritual dimension. The former is but a vessel for holding the latter.

Indeed, regarding washing of one’s fingertips after the meal, we find in the commentaries of AriZal (Rabbi Itzchok Luria, the founder of the most comprehensive contemporary system of Kabbala we have today — on which Chabad Chassidus is based, by the way) that through washing of our fingertips after the meal, we dispell the forces of klipah (spiritual impurity) that may have been attracted to us (similar to how the same forces are attracted to our body during our sleep and linger in the fingertips after we wake up, making it neccessary for us to wash them). Indeed, this is the kavana (conscious intent) one needs to have while washing one’s hands after the meal — to get rid of these forces of impurity.

So, why don’t women wash their fingertips? Apparently, because the forces of impurity do not affect them in this case. How do we know this? Because women are not required halachically to wash their fingertips after a meal. The most important lesson that Chabad Chassidus teaches us is: we must realize that ein od milvado — there is nothing but G-d. There is absolute unity of G-d with His creation, both space and time. All events happen in time and in space when they are supposed to happen according to the grand design of creation. Spiritual at all times is connected to the physical, both in historical events and in Torah.

Therefore, if — for whatever historical reasons! — women were not obligated to wash their fingertips at the time that this custom was instituted, it must mean that whatever the spiritual dimension of this custom is, it did not apply to women but applied to men. Even if nowadays the particular physical causes of this difference (and the reason for the custom itself) no longer apply, their spiritual aspects still do, making it necessary for us to honor the custom.

False sense of safety

*

The worst invention in the Western Civilization's recent history was a result of Americans' attempt to reduce fatalities from road accidents. They introduced the inflatable airbag into the cars. Now the passengers drive, having a sense of safety.

If I were trying to reduce the accidents, I would put a sharp knife in the middle of the steering wheel. And that would reduce the accidents, because, by G-d, people would be driving carefully now.

-- Hugh Hendry, British hedge funds manager (and a famous critic of the government's attempts to manage the economy)

The point of the above quote is that by creating agencies that manage our safety for us, without our choice, the government makes us less safe. First, the agencies like FDA are extremely inefficient and in general bad at what they're trying to do, as a result of being monopolies. But more severely, they prevent us from caring for our own lives and safety.

As a result, you have attempts at logical arguments that state that without FDA, unsafe drugs and food would fill the markets, because the people wouldn't have anyone watching out for them (while the businesses would of course care more about selling the drugs and not about the safety of their customers). The people who make them cannot imagine that someone might want to care for his own safety, relying (if necessary) on private inspection agencies whose reputation he would keep an eye on.


And I think, in the end, that is the worst result of socialism: it changes the culture. It creates a nation of slaves, of people who are similar to a 30-year-old who lives with his parents and is unable to make a decision himself about his life. (As I have written before, studies show that children who were given some small allowances and allowed to manage their purchases themselves grew up to be more responsible adults.)

This is the worst result of American and European governments' policies. We see this culture of dependent junkies in Greece today. When their government attempts to cut down on spending, they come out to streets and protest, since they are not getting the free pie.

The same thing happened in the Roman Empire: in an attempt to please the public and win popularity, the government created welfare programs, feeding and entertaining the masses for free (the source of the 'bread and circuses' expression). Unfortunately, this could not be sustained forever. In an attempt to pay for the ever-increasing demands of the public, Roman government debased the currency, creating massive economic crisis that spanned the centuries and was one of the reasons for the downfall of the Empire.

In my opinion, unless drastic change of course is undertaken (by the people themselves -- for the government will never change itself for the better), both American and European societies are headed the same way. They will destroy themselves from the inside, degenerating socially, economically, and culturally.

___________________________
* source of image

Albert Einstein on music

If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I see my life in terms of music. I get most joy in life out of music.
— Albert Einstein

As is well known, Einstein played a violin. I find it interesting how strong his opinions on music were. (Also, this touches the question of taste vs. objective quality, but I won’t go into that here.) From here (quoted from Albert Einstein: The Human Side, where I read it first when I was doing a paper on Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman). From his answers to a questionnaire regarding his taste in music:

(1) Bach, Mozart, and some old Italian and English composers are my favorites in music. Beethoven considerably less — but certainly Schubert.

(2) It is impossible for me to say whether Bach or Mozart means more to me. In music I do not look for logic. I am quite intuitive on the whole and know no theories. I never like a work if I cannot intuitively grasp its inner unity (architecture).

(3) I always feel that Handel is good — even perfect — but that he has a certain shallowness. Beethoven is for me too dramatic and too personal.

(4) Schubert is one of my favorites because of his superlative ability to express emotion and his enormous powers of melodic invention. But in his larger works I am disturbed by a certain lack of architectonics [German: "Architektonik"].

(5) Schumann is attractive to me in his smaller works because of their originality and richness of feeling, but his lack of formal greatness prevents my full enjoyment. In Mendelssohn I perceive considerable talent but an indefinable lack of depth that often leads to banality.

(6) I find a few lieder and chamber works by Brahms truly signficant, also in their structure. But most of his works have for me no inner persuasiveness. I do not understand why it was necessary to write them.

(7) I admire Wagner's inventiveness, but I see his lack of architectural structure as decadence. Moreover, to me his musical personality is indescribably offensive so that for the most part I can listen to him only with disgust.

(8) I feel that [Richard] Strauss is gifted, but without inner truth and concerned only with outside effects. I cannot say that I care nothing for modern music in general. I feel that Debussy is delicately colorful but shows a poverty of structure. I cannot work up great enthusiasm for something of that sort.

It certainly makes me feel better about my tastes. Not in the sense that they “agree” with Einstein’s — I am rather fond of Beethoven, for instance — but in the sense that I feel less guilty not appreciating some famous musicians (I don’t particularly like Chopin, for example, to my chavrussa’s disgust). On the other hand, it is more likely that I don’t appreciate them because I have bad or undeveloped taste and no first-hand knowledge of music, while Einstein’s taste was probably grounded on something more substantial.

Polite indifference

I overheard a conversation on Shabbos (about philosophy of language), in which someone was saying: “When I am walking on campus, and I see someone I know, I say: ‘Hi, how are you?’ If this is a foreign person, he may start actually telling me how he is, because he doesn’t know that in American culture, saying ‘Hi, how are you?’ is just saying ‘Hello’, and answering ‘Fine’ is saying ‘Hello’ back”.

Of course, I’ve known this for all ten-eleven years I’ve been in this country, and it even makes some sense. But as I was listening to the conversation, I caught myself thinking that I would never get used to this feature of American culture — polite indifference.

(This has nothing to do with forms of greeting, by the way.)

A midnight story

(Marc Chagall, “Over Vitebsk”)

Translated with Google translator, since I don’t know how to translate poetry.

Listen to it (after midday of Friday) here. Lyrics (again, sorry for Google translation, with Russian sentence structure preserved — the best thing to do is listen to the song, while looking at the translation):

Hersh-cobbler summer night
After three glasses of vodka,
In a whimsical step was going
From the inn home.
Walking was on an empty street,
Past the old synagogue,
Where prayers were not heard
The long three hundred years.

Breath of cold he felt
From the ruins blackened,
To Hersh seemed as if
A fire blinked.
And immediately stopped,
He leaned to the wall broken,
And looked carefully
In the blue twilight.

He saw eight elders
In the bloody clothes,
A Torah scroll on a stone,
And also a candle.
And above Torah bowed
Old Rebbe Eliyahu,
By cossacks killed
Three hundred years ago.

Alcohol dispelled instantly.
Recoiled Hershle-shoemaker
And wanted to escape, but feet
Grew to the ground!
And looked the late Rebbe
At scared Hersh,
And said: "At last we
We have our minyan. "

To Hersh, he extended his hands,
And in the hands holes of wounds
From the nails that were knocked
Three hundred years ago:
Steadfast the rabbi was in the faith,
And for this cossacks
Nailed Eliyahu
Dead to the wall!

Then said Rabbi sadly:
"Could not we pray,
because were were only nine --
this is not a minyan.
That is why did not hear
Us the Heavenly Almighty,
And it looks like you, shoemaker,
Arrived on time."

And prayed Hershle poor
In the synagogue with the dead,
And as the morning lit up --
He became one of them.
And him found his neighbors --
Shifra-nurse and Dvoyra,
And his widow called,
And they said to her:

"With the dead in minyan
Hersh will remain from now,
So that they could pray
For the living - for us. "
And they told the widow
Empty water from the basin,
Because the angel of death
In it washed his knife.

... Since then passed the years.
No Jews in Yavoritsi.
Faded memory, and over
Our story about them.
But moonless nights
In the ruins of the synagogue
Someone is praying silently
For the living - for us.

Author: Daniel Kluger.

Nabokov on the difference between Russian and English

I couldn’t find a translation, so I made an attempt at it myself. Which is somewhat ironic, given the content.

Scientific scrupulousness moved me to save in the Russian text the last paragraph of the above-mentioned American afterword, despite the fact that it can only throw into confusion a Russian reader, not remembering and not understanding and never having read the books of “V. Sirin” published abroad in the 20s and 30s. To my American reader I so strongly insist on the superiority of my Russian word over the English one that some Slavist may indeed think that my translation of Lolita is one hundred times better than the original. I, however, am at another time nauseous from the off-tuned braying of my rusty Russian strings. The history of this translation is one of disappointment. Alas, that “wondrous Russian language”, which, it seemed to me, was still waiting for me somewhere, flourishing as a sure spring behind strongly shut gates, to which I for so many years had had a key, turned out nonexistent, and behind the gates lay nothing but charred tree stumps and autumn hopeless horizon, while the key resembled more a lock pick.

I find consolation in thinking that awkwardness of the present translation is the fault not only of a translator grown foreign to his native tongue, but also of the spirit of the language into which the translation is made. During the half a year of working on Russian Lolita, not only did I discover losing many personal trinkets, unreconstructible language movements and treasures, but also came to certain general conclusions about mutual translatability of the two wondrous languages.

Body language, poses, landscapes, slumber of trees, smells, rains, melting and shapeshifting hues of the nature, all that is gentle and human (surprisingly!), and everything masculine, rough, juicily vulgar turns out in Russian just as good, if not even better than in English. But so common to English things subtle and unspoken, poetry of thought, immediate exchange between the most abstract ideas, scampering of one-syllable qualifiers — all this, as well as everything relating to technology, fashions, sports, natural sciences and unnatural urges — becomes in Russian shackled, multi-syllabled, and often disgusting in the sense of style and rhythm. This misstep reveals the difference in historical aspect between the green Russian literary tongue and over-ripe as a fig ready to burst at seams, English language: between an ingenious but still somewhat uneducated, and often having bad taste youth and a venerable genius, uniting in himself stocks of shiny knowledge with full liberty of spirit. Liberty of spirit! All breath of humanity is in these words.

What do I personally think? I think Nabokov is full of crap.

The great trio

Excerpts from the cartoons based on the three books which were part of the green book that I would read while being sick (or when I just felt like reading it):

Number odin:

— I am a wolf. A wolf of a free tribe. My prey will be your prey.
— A brave heart. And a polite speech.

Number dva:

— Whom are we going to?
— You of course. … By the way, do you have anything to eat?
— I have another baloon.
— Maybe we will not go as guests to you. Because then I will be a guest, and you will not be one…

— Is anyone home?.. I said: “IS ANYONE HOME?”
—No there is not. And no need to yell. I heard well enough the first time.

“Congealed” — or “dense” — milk (consistency of caramel, but tastes better):



Number tri (my favorite of the three), with subtitles:

— Mom, when my brother grows old and dies, will I have to marry his wife?
— Why?..
— Well, I wear his old clothes, ride his bycicle…
— I promise you that I will rid you of his wife.
— Oh, that’s nice. Although, I have to say that I would much rather prefer a pet dog to a wife.

In retrospect, it is a bit creepy (the story, not marrying one’s sister-in-law). But then again, if I didn’t notice how creepy Brothers Grimm were, no wonder I was fine with this…

Wolf Hunt

A poem and a song by Vladimir Vysotsky.



From “Vysotsky in Different Tongues” (to see the lyrics, click on the Russian name on the right):

I rush out of my skin, out of sinews,
I’m again in the scrape with no rest;
I am chased; deadly chasing continues,
Hunters sighting their guns at my breast.

From behind pines the barrels are rumbling -
Hunters ambushing there in the shade,
On the snow wolves are helplessly tumbling,
Now they’re targets of blood and flesh made.

It is wolf hunting in full swing, it is wolf hunting!
Today the whole pack of wolves is doomed to die!
Shrill hunters’ shouting, dogs vomiting from barking,
Blood on the snow and bloody flags¹ that blind the eye!

Games they’re playing with us are not fair -
Our freedom is flagged from each flank;
And without turning a hair
With a firm hand they shoot us point blank.

We’ve got jaws, strong and full of desire,
Old leader, can you tell us then,
Why we frantically rush under fire,
And we never jump over the ban?

It is wolf hunting in full swing, it is wolf hunting!
Today the whole pack of wolves will soon be dead!
Shrill hunters’ shouting, dogs vomiting from barking,
Blood on the snow and bloody flags that drive me mad!

“Wolves must not ever break with tradition!
‘Cause the blind, newly born, in the den,
We, the cubs, sucked our mother’s nutrition
And we sucked in: ‘Don’t dare jump the ban!’”

Wolves must not break the rule - never wrest it!
Now I see that my time’s almost gone,
And the hunter to whom I am destined
Sneers wryly and raises his gun...

It is wolf hunting in full swing, it is wolf hunting!
Today the whole pack of wolves will soon be dead!
Shrill hunters’ shouting, dogs vomiting from barking,
Blood on the snow and bloody flags that drive me mad!

I got rid of obedience and fear -
Jumped the flags! Thirst for life made me fast!
And behind me I was glad to hear
Cries of people, abashed and aghast!

I rush out of my skin, out of sinews,
But today not as ever before!
I am chased and the chasing continues -
But the hunters will get me no more!

It is wolf hunting in full swing, it is wolf hunting!
Today the whole pack of wolves is doomed to die!
Shrill hunters’ shouting, dogs vomiting from barking,
Blood on the snow and bloody flags that blind the eye!

_____________
¹ An old Russian technique of wolfhunting is to encircle the spot where a wolf is with a rope, tied up to the surrounding trees. On this rope there are red flags or cloth strips. A wolf never crosses red flags.

A cartoon about socialist architecture, Irony of Fate

Pretty self-explanatory. A prelude to probably the most famous Soviet movie (watched still every year every late December), Irony of Fate.



I will just say from myself that this shows not only socialist architectural designs, but also general socialist mode of thinking.

An episode (some slightly untznius scenes) from the Irony of Fate: two of the characters (who are only 90% drunk) put a wrong friend (of the remaining two, who are 110% drunk) on a plane to Petersburg. He calls a taxi, names his address (in Moscow) and is driven to the same address in Petersburg, to an apartment, to which his keys fit. (Both apartment buildings are brand new and have the same, standard locks which have not been changed yet.) And then the real owner of the apartment arrives…



I can’t resist and post two more clips, when the hero of the movie is discovered by the heroine in her apartment, drunk (yes, I know, such a Russian plot):



… and the heroine’s groom arrives:

About stars

From the description:

An old Russian romance sung against a backdrop of landscape paintings by the 19th century Russian artist Isaak Levitan (who is considered the finest landscape artist in the Russian milieu).

Click on the link in the quote for translation of the song (just to warn: in Russian, the lyrics sound very romantic and poetic; in English — somewhat silly and cheesy).



I like the part about a “Russian” artist Isaac Levitan. From Wikipedia article:

Isaac Levitan was born in a shtetl of Kybartai, Kaunas region, Lithuania, into a poor but educated Jewish family. His father Elyashiv Levitan was the son of a rabbi, completed a Yeshiva and was self-educated. He taught German and French in Kaunas and later worked as a translator at a railway bridge construction for a French building company. At the beginning of 1870 the Levitan family moved to Moscow.

In September 1873, Isaac Levitan entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture where his older brother Avel had already studied for two years. After a year in the copying class Isaac transferred into a naturalistic class, and soon thereafter into a landscape class. Levitan's teachers were the famous Alexei Savrasov, Vasily Perov and Vasily Polenov.

In 1875, his mother died, and his father fell seriously ill and became unable to support four children; he died in 1879. The family slipped into abject poverty. As patronage for Levitan's talent and achievements, his Jewish origins and to keep him in the school, he was given a scholarship.

…and the rest is history.

Of Russian haircuts

The Raven

(source)



Read the poem (and about it) here.

So many cases, so little time

Russian grammar is fun. Besides having word formation akin to a lego puzzle (a few prefixes, one-to-three suffixes and one or two endings to form a regular word), it has cases. Cases are always fun for students of Russian. Both the students who are native speakers and those who are not.

If you don’t know what cases are, they are instances of inflection, the process of changing the word such that its meaning and functional role in the sentence changes. In English, only four cases exist and only regarding (some) pronouns. Otherwise, the function of a word is determined by its position. Borrrring. (Blame the French. As usual.)

I gave you a book. — Nominative case
You gave me a book. — Dative/Accusative case
This is my book. — Possessive case.
This book is mine. — Forgot its name, but you get the idea.

Well, in Russian there are six cases, and they apply to all nouns, pronouns and adjectives that take them as antecedents. (In case of adjective–antecedent relationship, both have to be of the same case, number and gender — yes, I said “gender”; in Russian even non-living things have gender: for instance, a table is “he”, while a bottle is “she”. The window is “it”.)

Russian is not unique about this. In other manly languages the same thing is going on (both about cases and genders). For instance, in German and Latin.

Well, did I mention that numbers can also be deflected? Yep. Even long ones, like “three thousand eight hundred ninety two”. Each of the six words has to be deflected, and unlike in the case of nouns, where rules are relatively simple (you need to know the gender and grammatical type of the noun — of course, native speakers know how to deflect naturally; but, they don’t know the cases naturally, which means they still need to memorize the proper endings for writing), for numerals the correct endings can be tricky. Think of it as juggling six balls while dancing a tango. The balls need to be flying up, but also in the direction one is dancing.

Ilya Birman gives a few examples. (Sorry, at this point one needs to speak Russian.)

Так вышло, что мне нужно сделать небольшой тест по русскому языку и отправить его по почте на соответствующую кафедру в универе. Склоняю числительные. Чтобы не было сильно скучно, придумываю всякие предложения.

8. Просклоняйте количественное числительное 1245 (книг).

1. Тысяча двести сорок пять книг стоят на полке.
2. Тысячи двухсот сорока пяти книг недосчитался библиотекарь.
3. И тысяче двумстам сорока пяти книгам не рассказать всех несмешных анекдотов!
4. Уж тысячу двести сорок пять книг прочёл, а всё бестолку.
5. Тысячью двумястами сорока пятью книгами можно натопить небольшую баню.
6. О тысяче двухстах сорока пяти книгах мне надоело придумывать дурацкие предложения.

9. Просклоняйте порядковое числительное 3892 (преподавателя).

Если числительное порядковое, то почему «преподавателя»? Видимо, ошибка в тесте. Пришлось склонять сразу и так, и эдак.

1. Три тысячи восемьсот девяносто два преподавателя пинают плохого студента три тысячи восемьсот девяносто второй раз.
2. Трёх тысяч восьмисот девяноста двух преподавателей достаточно, чтобы вкрутить лампочку с три тысячи восемьсот девяносто второго раза.
3. Трём тысячам восьмистам девяноста двум преподавателям пришлось ещё раз дать по башке три тысячи восемьсот девяносто второму (в рейтинге успеваемости) студенту.
4. Три тысячи восемьсот девяносто двух преподавателей наказали за избиение три тысячи восемьсот девяносто второго (в рейтинге успеваемости) студента.
5. Тремя тысячами восьмьюстами девяноста двумя преподавателями (в смысле, таким большим составом) можно доехать на работу три тысячи восемьсот девяносто вторым троллейбусом (ПКиО — Юпитер)
6. О трёх тысячах восьмистах девяноста двух преподавателях можно составить в три тысячи восемьсот девяносто два раза больше бессмысленных предложений, чем о три тысячи восемьсот девяносто втором кабинете главного корпуса (тем более, что такого нет).
   

Which is not to say I don’t love English. I do. It just has other strengths. All of them derived from Latin and German, obviously.

Of branches, Galileo, and overcoats

One my favorite pieces of literature. Not for those afflicted with ADD.

From: Die Geschichte von Herrn Sommer (The Story of Mr Sommer) by Patrick Süskind, translated to English by yours truly (I preserved the grammar, punctuation, style and the sentence structure — or what passes for it in this piece).


In the times when I still climbed trees — it was a long time ago, years and decades back, and I was barely above one meter tall, wore shoes of the twenty eighth size [my shoes are of the fortieth size — CA] and was so light that I could fly — no, I am not lying, I really could fly — or, at least, almost could fly, or let’s say it better: at that time it was certainly within my power to do so, if I were to very firmly desire it and try to do it, because... because I remember vividly how one day I almost flew, how it was in autumn, the same very year I started school and was returning on that day home, and the wind was so strong that I, without spreading my arms, could lean against it at the same angle as a skier, or even a larger angle, without fear of falling... and when I then ran against the wind, down the hill from the school mountain — for the school was on a small hill by the village — and slightly pushed away from the ground and spread my arms, the wind immediately caught me, and I could make without slightest effort jumps two-to-three meters high and ten-to-twenty meters long — or, perhaps, not quite so long and not quite so high, but what difference does it really make? — in any event, I was almost flying, and if only I unbuttoned my overcoat and took its tails in my hands and spread them out as wings, the wind would fully pick me up in the air, and I would with absolute ease glide down from the school mountain over the valley towards the forest, and then over the forest down to the lake, near which our house was standing, to the utter amazement of my father, my mother, my sister and my brother, who were already too old and too heavy to fly, then make an elegant turn over the garden only to glide back over the lake, almost reaching the opposite shore, and, finally, calmly coast back over the air and still be home in time for dinner.

But, I did not unbutton my overcoat and did not fly up in reality. Not because I was afraid to fly, but because I did not know how and where I would be able to land, and whether I really could land. The lawn in front of our house was too hard for landing, the garden was too small, the water in the lake was too cold. To lift off — that was no problem. But what about coming back down?

With climbing trees I had the same situation: climbing up was not problematic in the least way. I saw the branches in front of myself, I felt them in my hands and could test their hardness even before I lifted myself and then put my foot on them. But when I was climbing down, I did not see everything and was forced to find, more or less blindly, the branches below me, until I found a proper support — except, oftentimes, the support was not so firm, but rotten and slippery, and then I would slip or fall through, and if I did not have a chance to catch some branch with both hands, I would fall down as a stone does, according to the so-called laws of falling bodies, discovered already almost four hundred years ago by an Italian scientist Galileo but still acting even today. [...]

A singing break from work

Thanks to le7 for sending me this. Only singing, no instruments. I already posted a version of this niggun, but it had some violins playing in the background, so I won’t link to it right now (even though I personally couldn’t really hear the violins).



A perfect example of Jews elevating local “sparks”.

The full album is available for download. Give a donation to Yad L'shliach and enjoy the album for free!

Of cookies and red-blooded Englishmen

(The man who first made me an atheist and then a chossid)

A story by Douglas Adams that I particularly like:

Cookies

This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person is me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I’d gotten the time of the train wrong. I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table. I want you to picture the scene. It’s very important that you get this very clear in your mind. Here’s the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of cookies. There’s a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase. It didn’t look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.

Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There’s nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies. You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know… But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do aclue in the newspaper, couldn’t do anything, and thought: What am I going to do?

In the end I thought: Nothing for it, I’ll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought: That settled him. But it hadn’t because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie. Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice…” I mean, it doesn’t really work.

We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away. Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and sat back.

A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies. The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who’s had the same exact story, only he doesn’t have the punch line.

— From The Salmon of Doubt

Masterclass vignettes

With only little time left for listening of instrumental music before the coming of Mashiach (iy”H), one more music video — of the famous Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich “critiquing” the play of a young musician as a part of the Masterclass series.


(click on HQ for better picture and sound quality — in this case it may be necessary to understand Maestro)

It may seem that these videos I post are videos of music that I enjoy. This is true. But they are also videos of Judaism (as all my posts are — well, the serious ones, anyway). This one in particular.

From the same concerto, “critique” by Paul Tortelier:



And finally, a very important part (listen to the part starting from 1:52 — related to this comment to TRS’s post about Jewish music):

Heimish vs. Aimish

One time my rabbi was asked if a non-Jewish girl can come and observe the Kabbalos Shabbos, Friday night dinner, etc. I don’t remember if this was for a paper or a project or just out of curiosity.

He answered: “This is not a zoo.”

I don’t really understand this phenomenon (see also the article on CrownHeight.info).

What was the point of this? So, to go to a theater is past nisht, because it’s a public act of bittul Torah. But to walk around Crown Heights with Aimish, showing off Chassidim to them as “not so different from you” and to the rest of the world as “cute little cartoon characters” (yes I stole this phrase from Stranger Amongst Us) is fine?

What exactly was the point of this? In what way is it Kiddush Hashem to associate ourselves with backward, primitive people who distrust technology because it will supposedly ruin their lives and push them away from G-d?

Let those who ban Internet associate themselves with the Aimish. The Chabad way is: “Everything that G-d created, He created for His glory” and “just because the fools worship sun, moon and stars, should G-d destroy His Universe?” We use technology and the rest of this world for G-dly purposes and thus make a dwelling place for G-d in this world. Also, we don’t draw the strength from banning things and creating walls around ourselves — we draw strength from making sure Judaism is internalized, deep and meaningful for us, not superficial and based on emotions and only simple faith. “Chochma—Bina—Daas”, man. (Even as Chassidim, we don’t hold on to our Rebbe’s gartel, but learn his teachings. The theology of Judaism.)

Yes, it is important to influence the “outside”, both Jews and, lehavdil, non-Jews. But these are religious, fundamentalist Christians. The whole time they were thinking: “This is all very nice, but these people killed our god.” They don’t allow technology take over their lives — good for them. Nu, so what does this have to do with us? They are superficially similar to Chassidim; yeah, this thought has passed through many people’s minds. It’s cute. But only superficially. It seems that the Aimish themselves saw this clearly too:

John Lapp and his wife, Priscilla, brought their three children on the tour. John Lapp said the ties to the communities might be more surface than substance.

"In some things we are alike, like our clothing and our traditional beliefs," he said. Priscilla Lapp added, "And in some things we are not. The biggest thing is that [that man] is our savior."

Also, everyone knows that journalists lie. And that they will paint anything two feet to the right or to the left of Brad Pitt as exotic and backwards. This tendency stems from liberals’ love to observe foreign primitive cultures and, as Arbat writes, to become distressed when the natives’ “natural culture” is disrupted by immunization shots or installation of toilets in their houses.

So, the best thing to prevent this is control what reaches the media. When you invite a bunch of Aimish to Crown Heights, you are sure to get these pearls:

Today's Lubavitchers wear the black hats and beards of their 18th-century forebears, speak Yiddish and refrain from turning on electricity or driving cars on the Sabbath. ...

However, both groups use one modern amenity — cell phones that kept ringing as they wandered through Crown Heights. And the Hasids ironically operate the famed B&H electronics retail store in Manhattan that serves customers from around the world. [What is ironic about this, I have no idea.] ...

The groups also toured a Jewish library and a "matzo factory," where round, unleavened bread was being made for the Passover holiday.

There, a cross-cultural misunderstanding caused one of the Jewish men to look at the Amish, and ask, repeatedly, "Are you from Usbekhistan?"

An Amish man, also confused, asked, "Afghanistan?"

Finally, as they were leaving, another Amish man announced to the matzo-makers: "We're from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania!"

The whole article presents Chabad, the community that brings to the world the essence of the primordial thought Hashem had before creating this world, as a lemming colony described in a National Geographic issue. Good job. Perhaps Rabbi Beryl Epstein would be better off by helping his wife clean the house for Peisach.

Update: I get it. This was an April Fool joke. Wow. Got me.

Mitteler Rebbe’s Kapelyeh

Adapted for piano.

This melody is […] divided into four sections, symbolizing the four rungs on the ladder of approach and devotion of man to G-dliness.

The Tzemach Tzedek explained that the purpose of the orchestra which played on certain occasions for his father-in-law, the Mitteler Rebbe, was to prevent him from reaching the state of termination of earthly existence (kelos ha’nefesh). In his supreme [earning for] the Almighty, the Rebbe could have literally expired unto G-dliness.

Another version of the Kapelyeh, with notes.

Chapters 10, 18 and 32 from Mittler Rebbe’s Sha’ar HaYichud.