Notes & News
NOTES & NEWS Uncommon Sense The following are excerpts from a new book by Joseph Telushkin entitled Uncommon Sense: The World's Fullest Compendium of Wisdom (Shapolsky, 1987): Faith and Doubt If...
...The mask is often a prominent feature of Purim make-believe...
...I don't understand the proposal," she said...
...We are surrounded by the mundane, yet we can make the mundane holy...
...Jewish Community Council for refusing to make available to us its mailing list of 1,900 Jewish leaders so that we could send them subscription brochures...
...We've really worked hard scientifically . . . and shown that rainmaking is not for hustlers, or only an act of God, but a physical process [in which people] can intervene...
...The council's mailing list was made available in connection with the promotion of a commercial book published by a commercial publisher, Prentice-Hall...
...It turned out, however, that the old Portuguese colonial police had a six-pointed metal star on their caps...
...However...
...In a Notes and News item in our January/February 1988 issue ("Jews as University Presidents"), moment said that James O. Freedman is the first Jewish president of Dartmouth College...
...When a person commits an evil act, he discredits himself...
...Israel now consumes more than 100 percent of its annual "water potential," which means that the country's reserve supply is seriously depleted...
...Some have suggested that masks became popular because they made revelers less recognizable, and thus, less inhibited...
...The Third Commandment is the only one of the ten concerning which God says, "for the Lord God will not forgive him who carries His name in vain" (Exodus 20.6-7...
...Children as well as adults sometimes dress up as Queen Esther, her uncle Mordecai or some other character in the Purim story...
...An embarrassed General Mills quickly changed the design of its cereal box...
...The artist, who was born in Poland in 1939, survived the Holocaust and moved to Israel with her family in 1947...
...Who knows this better than moderns who have had to cope with dogmatic Fascists, Communists and even scientists...
...Emmanuel Rachman {The Condition of Jewish Belief...
...Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank...
...Helen Telushkin Marriage and its Discontents No man is a hero to his wife's psychiatrist...
...The reason is now clear...
...If we can't do that, moment will not survive...
...The Simon Wiesenthal Center accused the Mozambique government of acquiescing in anti-Semitic symbolism...
...on the contrary, we applaud it...
...The practice of wearing costumes for Purim preceded the widespread wearing of masks...
...Blaise Pascal (Pensees) Man's Misuse of God The third of the Ten Commandments, "You shall not take God's name in vain," is usually misunderstood to mean that it is blasphemous to say words such as goddamn...
...The first and most heartwarming response we received was a telephone call from the local chapter of the American Jewish Committee, offering us the use of their mailing list (see also Forum letter, "Our Enemies Could Do No Better," p. 6...
...Men should not be allowed out at night " Truth A half-truth is a whole lie...
...Historically, there was one Esther...
...This is not the Esther...
...the council denied us its mailing list even though it wanted our permission to reprint a seminal article from the September moment to send to those on this same mailing list...
...You shall not take God's name in vain" is a misleading translation of the Hebrew, which literally means "You shall not carry God's name in vain...
...Then to our dismay, we heard that in the past the D.C...
...Its Not Esther is the work of Dina Dar of Woodland Hills, California...
...Many today have doubts about God's existence, but they live as if God does not exist...
...In 1984, the Skirball Museum of the Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles invited 50 local artists to develop "fantasy" masks based on characters from the Purim story or other chapters in Jewish history...
...Mozambique was a Portuguese colony until 1975...
...Gagin claims that no adverse environmental effects have been found over all the years of cloud seeding, and that there has even been a positive side effect—Jordan's rainfall has increased...
...Religious Tolerance An Anglican minister and a Catholic priest were arguing about religion...
...Gagin, along with his colleagues at the University, has succeeded in making rain, according to an account in the Near East Report...
...Our source should have been credited, but wasn't...
...That Esther is not just a physical representation, she said, but "this seed, this part of each Jew that is willing to do unselfish deeds for the whole of Israel...
...Jewish Community Council had on occasion made its mailing list available to others, as council president Norman Goldstein now concedes...
...NOTES & NEWS Uncommon Sense The following are excerpts from a new book by Joseph Telushkin entitled Uncommon Sense: The World's Fullest Compendium of Wisdom (Shapolsky, 1987): Faith and Doubt If only God would give me some clear sign...
...It symbolizes redemption from extermination, from the Holocaust" Dar made the mask from the paper-like bark of a cajeput tree...
...Ifs my Esther," Dar explained, when asked how her mask got its name...
...Woody Allen God may have His own reasons for denying us certainty with regard to His existence and nature...
...On Purim, men are permitted to dress as women and vice versa, practices normally frowned upon by Jewish law...
...We apologize...
...It turned out that the six-pointed Star of David was unintentionally produced by an electronic photocopy process, even though the original photo from a Dracula movie did not have the star...
...The project began back in 1961 and continues today...
...Eric Berne (psychiatrist and author of Games People Pla/l Desperately Seeking Author moment needs to locate the author of "A Fresh Look at an Old Mitzvah," an unsolicited manuscript concerning observance of the laws of the mikvah...
...Reactions to "Choking Jewish Communication" In our December 1987 Perspective column ("Choking Jewish Communication"), we criticized the Washington, D.C...
...To encourage rain, airplanes fly north-south routes over the Mediterranean Sea and seed clouds with silver iodine particles...
...The council was quite properly helping to promote a wonderful book—Torah With Love by David Epstein and Suzanne S. Stutman (see the review in the September 1987 moment...
...moment, by contrast, is a charitable organization, trying our best to become self-sustaining...
...As a result, God pronounces this sin unpardonable...
...The mask featured on our cover, Its Not Esther, was one of four entries selected for the museum's permanent collection...
...Many are puzzled that such an act is listed in the document that forbids murdering, stealing, idolatry and adultery...
...The feast of Purim, observed this year on March 3, is traditionally celebrated with many kinds of merrymaking unique to this holiday, In particular, masquerades...
...But when a religious person commits an evil act in the name of God, he discredits God...
...A slightly different scenario occured recently in Mozambique, when an 80-foot government-sanctioned mural showed a black man being held and shackled by another man wearing a cap displaying a six-pointed star...
...We do not criticize the council for doing this...
...But it's hard to understand the council's decision to deny moment the use of its mailing list, while at the same time making it available to others for commercial purposes...
...Finally, one said to the other, "But after all, we each worship God...
...But every Jew has an Esther in herself or himself...
...I cannot, Father, not in this life...
...They are agnostics, but live as atheists . . You may be agnostic in theory, but in practice you live either a religious or a secular life...
...Yiddish proverb Mozambique's Magen David The January/February 1988 moment Spice Box included a picture of the dangerous Count Chocula wearing a "Jewish" star, taken from General Mills' Count Chocula cereal box...
...A New Face for Purim...
...Rainmaking—Modern Miracle in Israel "People always have prayed for rain in this part of the world," says Professor Abraham Gagin of Hebrew University...
...Because I am a survivor, the story of Esther has a stronger meaning for me...
...The Syrian government reportedly intends to divert the Yarmuk River, which will cut the flow to Jordan's Ghor irrigation canal, so Israeli rainmaking could be even more essential for Jordan in the future...
...The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him...
...The custom of Purim masquerades apparently arose from the influence of the Italian carnivals held before Lent, around the same time of the year as Purim...
...If peaceful conditions existed, Jordanians would be able to fly over Israel" to seed clouds drifting east, says Gagin...
...Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin {Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism) Loving and Fighting with God In Isaac Bashevis Singer's novel, The Slave, Jacob, a deeply religious man whose family has been murdered by anti-Semites, ruminates- "I have no doubt that you are the Almighty and that whatever you do is for the best, but it is impossible for me to obey the commandment, 'You shall love your God.' No...
...Men are committing the rapes...
...Even a common material can evoke an ancient, luxurious feeling," she explained...
...Mozambique's ambassador to the United States, Valeriano Ferrao, said Mozambique has no anti-Semitic feelings...
...in other words, don't use God as your justification in selfish causes...
...Happiness The only people I know who are happy are people I don't know well...
...The most recent occasion on which the council made available its mailing list occurred in September 1987, within days of the time the council denied moment the use of its mailing list...
...Corrections An item in Notes and News (December 1987) entitled "A Rabbi Buried in the Amazon Jungle Performs Miracles from the Grave" was based on an article in The New York Times by Marlise Simons...
...Golda Meir, the only female member of the cabinet, was asked her opinion...
...And political complications over groundwater sources such as proposed wells near Bethlehem, make the water situation in Israel even graver...
...One reason apparent to us is that man's certainty with regard to anything is poison to his soul...
...you in your way, I in His...
...Please call moment's editorial staff at 800-221-4644, or write to us at 3000 Connecticut Avenue, \ N:W, Suite 300, Washington, DC ,2000a Between Men and Women In the early years of the state of Israel a number of rapes occurred, and at a cabinet meeting one member proposed that women not be allowed out alone at night until the rapists were caught...
...The Dartmouth College Archives has told us that the first Jewish president was John Kemeny, who served from 19701981...
Vol. 13 • March 1988 • No. 1
