Weird dream

I had a weird dream earlier this week. I dreamed I was with a group of other men waiting to be circumcised. I said (to whoever was in charge) that I am already circumcised and I even showed him. (Despite my showing my penis there was no sexual or erotic content to this dream whatsoever; it was not that kind of a dream.)

I know that circumcision is a sign of one's being inducted into the Jewish faith, whether you're born into it or converted. Israelite Samaritan males are, of course, circumcised at 8 days just like we are. I imagine that someone who isn't circumcised (a non-Jew) who wished to adopt the IS (version of our) faith would have to be circumcised & I also imagine that a Jew who wished to adopt the IS (version of our) faith would be OK as is (no drawing a drop of blood with a pinprick as a symbolic circumcision).

I wonder what this dream means in terms of attachment to the IS (version of our) faith. Any ideas?

Henry V & the latest mikveh scandal

Last Shabbat (of Chol Hamoed Sukkot, the third Shabbat of the month), I read prayer #2 in shul (I keep a printout in my tallis bag, sneaky me) and noticed the lines

...Come to us and let our forsaken peoples return to us and gather all our brothers among the Israelites, and return them to the land of our forefathers...

Going back to what my IS friend told me on Aargareezem, that they see us (Jews) as brothers, I looked at this line from the prayer & I thought, the ISs regard us as brothers and pray for us, and how do we see them? Our attitude toward them is like the Duke of Exeter's remarks (in Henry V, Act II, Scene IV) regarding King Henry V's attitude toward the Dauphin:

Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,

I don't know about defiance but we certainly look at them with scorn, slight regard & contempt. Ugh!

I am reading about the latest o'dox mikveh scandal in the US. Yuck! I can't help but think that such a thing could not happen in the IS community simply because the ISs hold that a wife after her seven (not 12!; rabbis made up the extra five days; the Torah specifies only seven days) days of separation may bathe in the privacy of her own home (with only God looking her over) before resuming relations with her husband. It seems to me that the ISs thereby do something radical: They trust the wife & don't make it super-complicated, which in turn requires lots of rabbis to explain it to the rest of us, build & maintain the mikve to exacting specifications, which gives them even more control, Keep it simple and trust the wife. Wow. How radical.

"...who has not made me a woman."

Months ago I stopped saying the morning blessing in which we praise God, "who has not made me a woman." I've seen more than a few of the o'dox apologetics for this, some of them by o'dox women, and they just don't wash. They all seem to be a variant on theme of "Since men are spiritually weaker than women, God gave us lots of particular mitzvot & that is what we are thanking Him for." Even if one accepts this idea (I don't, not any more), it still doesn't sound right ("...who has not made me a woman"). In fact, it sounds rather horrible. Our Sages could have & should have found a better way to express the idea. So I've been saying what women say & thus praise God, "for making me according to His will." Works for me.

By the way, the ISs reject the o'dox Jewish idea of women being exempt from time-bound positive mitzvot (scroll down to the bottom of the first section). Where is that written? (as my IS friend would say.)

It's a lock

OK, the title of this post is a pun on the Hebrew word ne'ila, which in modern Hebrew means "locking." It is also the name of the final prayer service that ends Yom Kippur. So yesterday as everybody shouted the Shema (see the foregoing link, scroll down to "Final Affirmations"), I shouted it in the IS mode. Nobody heard me (due to the noise of over 100 people shouting all at once) but I heard me (and God, of course) :-) When we next shouted "Adonai hu ha-Elohim" seven times, I shouted "Shema u-Eloowenu" seven times. Again, I heard me (and God again; He's a good listener).

I've noticed that at synagogue on the Shabbat & on holydays, I now invariably stand against the wall with my arms folded, almost out of reflex. I guess this is my way of showing that I would so rather be somewhere else & I'm trying to minimize my presence, as it were.

Now I've got to go build my faux sukkah...

Sabi a-Libee