Obama will host the second Seder ever to be held in the White House. It boggles the mind when you think of it since pols when pontificating on some moralist theme often refer to the “Judeo-Christian tradition.” It’s often an overstatement. After some religious right figure called for the moment of silence in lieu of school prayer and referencing such practice as “Judeo-Christian,” a Jewish comedian whose name I can’t remember remarked, “I was raised in a Jewish household and I can tell you that we never once had a moment of silence, unless we were all sleeping!”
My religious studies professor in college (Noel King, who died last year :&( ) referred to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the “quarrelsome family of a mother and two daughters.” And it could be argued that Judaism and Islam have more in common with each other than either with Christianity (“there is no god but God” is a quote in reference to what some of them perceive to be the polytheism of the Christian trinity).
But over the past few decades it has become fashion in Christian fundamentalism to deem Jews automatically saved (a serious point of contention). So with at least the facile elements of anti-semitism in check, why was there never a Seder held in the White House before last year? Nixon had problems with Jews, but what about the other presidents? Boggles the mind.
Kudos to Obama for doing it, without making a huge deal out of it. Maybe it’ll become a permanent tradition. Sure, it’s merely symbolic. But this is some powerful symbolism.
I wonder if they put oranges on the Seder plate.
Anyway, the New York Times provides the brief history (including the WH protocols compromised to accommodate last year’s Seder) leading into this year’s event.
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March 28, 2010 at 10:29 pm
Anonymous
When the president celebrates Darwin Day, I’ll be impressed.
Good point about the polytheism of Christianity. If you single out different names in your prayers (Jesus, God/Yaweh, Holy Spirit, Mary, or saints), those become multiple gods in my book.
March 29, 2010 at 12:07 am
Anonymous
Darwin was Christian. Just saying.
March 29, 2010 at 1:42 am
Trencherbone
@Anon
“Good point about the polytheism of Christianity. If you single out different names in your prayers (Jesus, God/Yaweh, Holy Spirit, Mary, or saints), those become multiple gods in my book.”
But Yaweh is Elohim.
The Trinity and Elohim avoid the two extremes of absolute singularity (Tawheed) and plurality (polytheism) http://crombouke.blogspot.com/2010/01/tawhid-or-tawheed-versus-christian.html
March 29, 2010 at 7:36 am
Mitch
Here’s my JewBuddhist brief haggadah, because I’ve never been comfortable with the “us plus God” against them theme. Apologies to any real poets out there:
We were enslaved by our desires.
One of us saw our true nature: we, like fire, burn but are not consumed.
We, like fire, are nothing:
change, changing, changed, changeable until nothing is no more.
That which saw our true nature came to us, and said: “why be enslaved?”
Said “have faith.”
Said, “plunge into a sea of truth.”
Said, “it will be all right.”
Our desires would not let go; they caused us great grief.
Eventually, we let die everything that was not our true selves.
Our desires chased us, but could not catch us.
We spent forty years of severity.
We arrived at the other side.
March 29, 2010 at 8:49 am
Andrew Bird
A story about Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele’s self-indulgent and costly junkets using party money reveals this:
A February RNC trip to California, for example, included a $9,099 stop at the Beverly Hills Hotel, $6,596 dropped at the nearby Four Seasons, AND $1,946.25 AT VOYEUR WEST HOLLYWOOD, A BONDAGE-THEMED NIGHTCLUB FEATURING TOPLESS WOMEN DANCERS IMITATING LESBIAN SEX.
Here is one of the many lavish testimonials about Voyeur West Hollywood at Yelp.com:
The girl at the door sent us in right away and told us to go to a table by the bar and get some free Champagne. Seriously. This club is amazing. There are topless “dancers” acting out S&M scenes throughout the night on one of the side stages, there’s a half-naked girl hanging from a net across the ceiling and at one point I walked to the bathroom and pretty much just stopped dead in my tracks to watch two girls simulating oral sex in a glass case.
Also, Lindsay Lohan was at our table at one point.
The party of family values and Christian ethic. This is the man who is going to lead the great Republican Party comeback of 2010. The nation is going embrace Michael Steele and shun Barack Obama in November. Hilarious.
March 29, 2010 at 10:05 am
Darwin'sChristianity
Darwin was a scientist, who found that the theological bullshit spouted by various priests, rabbis and Imams was just that, bullshit. That false tale about his supposed re-conversion on his deathbed is just another example of the superstitious attempting to co-opt logic, reason and science to fit their ridiculous beliefs.
There has been no more harmful philosophical or social construct that has done more harm to humanity than Western monotheism, and it continues to this day.
March 29, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Anonymous
Gee Darwin’s Christianity. Does that include the 20 million killed by the atheist Stalin?
March 29, 2010 at 3:43 pm
suzy blah blah
‘the egg came before the chicken’
Charles Darwin
March 29, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Darwin'sChristianity
Ooooh gee anonymousprick, does it, because Stalin was schooled in a Seminary, so you tell me. Stalin was a brutal dictator, he didn’t kill because of atheism he killed for power and recognized that Judaism, Christianity and any other social, philosophical or political group was a threat to his power. Now tell me, who would Jesus bomb? The Iraqis? The Iranians? The Vietnamese? How many dark-skinned foreigners would Jesus kill? Please read a fucking history book before spouting off
March 29, 2010 at 4:52 pm
suzy blah blah
Now tell me, who would Jesus bomb?
Jesus wouldn’t be the one to actually drop the bombs, too risky to let the kid do it. It takes someone more experienced, like Jesus’ father. He destroyed the human race in the great flood, he killed off the enemies of the Jews throughout the OT. He even, by intelligent design, killed his own son! He’d think nothing of doing say, another Hiroshima or two at the very least.
March 29, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Eric Kirk
Andrew – that’s all over the left blogs everywhere. Someone somewhere joked today that spending 2 grand at a lesbian bondage nightclub is the RNC’s concept of Gay and Lesbian community outreach.
March 29, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Eric Kirk
Darwyn’s Christianity – Stalin wasn’t in seminary when he initiated the purges. All ideologies are responsible for bloodshed at some level, except maybe the Unitarians. But monotheism isn’t the cause, nor any ideology. Ideologies are merely vehicles. The cause is our inability to get along.
March 29, 2010 at 8:33 pm
the reasonable anonymous
Dogmatic ideologies, religious or otherwise, help create and reinforce social systems that promote “getting along” within the in-group, while perpetuating not getting along with others.
March 30, 2010 at 7:37 am
suzy blah blah
I agree that ‘ideologies are merely vehicles’, but saying that the cause for genocide is our ‘inability to get along’ is a wee bit euphemistic. Evil exists as a cause not just an effect.
March 30, 2010 at 7:40 am
suzy blah blah
promote “getting along” within the in-group, while perpetuating not getting along with others.
By means of projection.
March 30, 2010 at 1:01 pm
moviedad
Greed. It all boils down to greed. Name one sin/crime/offense, that is not at its core; greed. A person wants something; that is the beginning of all evil.
March 30, 2010 at 2:16 pm
suzy blah blah
A person wants something; that is the beginning of all evil.
-ooops, i think you have that spelled backwards: should be, ‘…that is the beginning of to live‘.
March 30, 2010 at 4:42 pm
moviedad
Nope. I could ad..”more than their share of….” but no Suzy, Wanting is the beginning of evil.
March 30, 2010 at 6:18 pm
suzy blah blah
Wanting is the beginning of evil.
gotcha, Darwin wanted a boat and look the blasphemous malevolence that led to.
March 30, 2010 at 9:53 pm
moviedad
Obviously you’re choosing to ignore my deeper meaning. But hey, you’re right. Let’s keep things lite and superficial. The internet is totally the shallow end of the pool.
March 31, 2010 at 7:37 am
suzy blah blah
no i didn’t ignore your ‘deeper meaning’, i ridiculed it. But obviously that was over your head. So let me come down to your shallow level of the pool so that you can understand me. I am saying that your simple minded theory of desire being the cause of evil in the world is nonsense. Yes i know that you’ve been told that ‘Eve desired the fruit of the Tree and that is the cause of all evil’. But i’m saying that that theory is BS. Eastern religions are not very different they also tell their followers that desire is bad. It’s simple, they tell you that desire is bad which means that you are bad because you desire. But lo and behold they have the solution –believe in their savior and your sins ie your desires will be remitted. It’s the oldest con game in the world. They tell you you’re guilty for being born but don’t worry they can fix it for you. The price ends up being your soul. If you can’t see through this con then there’s not much hope in you seeing my basic point of view so we’ll have to agree to disagree.
March 31, 2010 at 7:48 am
lil swimmer in rubber pants
sputter, splash, thrash…. uh moviedad, deepwater thinking is over on some
Buddhist blog.
eric! suzy’s splashing water in moviedad’s face!
March 31, 2010 at 9:34 am
moviedad
Jeez Suzy, who are you lecturing? Is this a lesson on your idea of what some people believe? I used to like your arrogant, third person-”aren’t I so cute” commentary. But you seem to have a problem with some people’s Judaeo-Christian/Buddhist belief system. I suggest therapy.
As for my particular feelings on God, or Non-God, or whatever. That’s not really the issue. Personally I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
I say greed is the root of all evil. What’s the big deal? You seem to be saying that me feeling that way is the bigger bad.
March 31, 2010 at 12:01 pm
suzy blah blah
I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.
Let me simplify it for you:
You said, “wanting is the beginning of evil.”
i said that’s bs.
March 31, 2010 at 12:23 pm
suzy blah blah
Mitch, you correlated the Buddhist’s concept of going to the other shore, Nirvana, to crossing the Red Sea. Egypt is from that viewpoint seen as Samsara. And to further that idea then, returning to Egypt is related to returning to Samsara –which is the calling of a boddhisatva. Eg attaining nirvana, ie the “promised land”, and then returning. Joseph’s journey to Egypt and Jesus’ flight to Egypt can now, with this insight in mind, be related to the boddhisatva.
March 31, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Mitch
suzy blah blah,
“Well, then!” or “Hot damn!”
Shall we write a Buddhist The Name of the Rose?
March 31, 2010 at 2:12 pm
suzy blah blah
hey hey Mitch, let’s make the setting a Zen Buddhist monastery, then we can resolve our who-done-it via koans, like for instance, Does Evil Have the Buddha Nature? LOL!
huggles,
suzen
March 31, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Mitch
moviedad,
Here’s my two-minute essay on “greed,” “desire,” and “evil.” It’s worth at least twice what you’re paying.
First, a quote that floats about in professional Buddhist circles (yes, there was a bit of a sneer there): “pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”
If I may translate — we’re pretty much pissed off about the way things are, most of us, most of the time. But (and this is the critical part, with which you too can found a religion), we can choose our response to that which leaves us dissatisfied.
For buddhists: yes, you want to own it all. Just sit, that’s enlightenment. “See, that itch went away all by itself.” Wanting to own it all… that’s just monkey mind. Not evil but teddibly unskilled. Don’t cry, I didn’t say evil. Sit for another ten years or so, and call me in the morning.
For christians: yes, you want to own it all, that’s human nature, and it’s evil. But do unto others what you’d want others to do unto you. Share. Be nice. You can have it all later, in heaven.
For jews: yes, you want to own it all, that’s human nature, and it’s evil. But don’t do unto others anything you wouldn’t want others doing unto you. Share. Be nice. Don’t turn the lights on on Saturday. Don’t eat pig. You’re never going to get it all, but maybe we won’t kill you.
For catholics: (incorporate “for christians,” above, then add) Listen to the pope, even if he sounds like a jerk. Eat fish regularly.
March 31, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Mitch
zbb,
If you’re still talking to me after that last post… do you think we can find a publisher who’ll give an advance on fifty blank pages? If not, let’s pass smallish (sub-500-word) chapters back and forth on Eric’s blog. Tag, you’re it.
March 31, 2010 at 2:47 pm
moviedad
Now that is a bargain at half the price.
I still say wanting=bad.
Satisfied/no desires=good.
Of course it’s not very Buddhist of me to attach good and bad to things. I would say that is being “dualistic” but I wouldn’t want to throw around a bunch of cultural-religious terms I don’t really understand.
I don’t recall defending, or espousing any particular belief or faith tradition. But I must say the way you guy’s condense the human longing for knowledge, and understanding of forces that may exist beyond the Newtonian paradigm; into conceited sound-bites worthy of the latest bumper sticker, is truly remarkable.
Now I’m off to my science class to study Mendelian Genetics. But of course Mendel must have been a nut-job, being a cloistered monk and all…
March 31, 2010 at 3:39 pm
Mitch
moviedad,
Sorry for the offense. It’s called play. I think ” Beyond the Newtonian Paradigm: A Dualistic Guide to Conceited Sound Bites, Bumper Stickers and Mendelian Genetics” would make a great title for the book.
March 31, 2010 at 3:55 pm
suzy blah blah
chapter one: “Pain is Inevitable, Suffering is Optional.”
The setting is a voluptuously austere room in an old Japanese monastery. Suzy Zen Blah is sorting through her afternoon mail and blowing on her freshly polished nails. A Jewddhist monk, Mitch, sits on the floor cross-legged, doing ‘no thing’. She sweeps the letters aside.
hey Mitch, it looks like we’re in business. i found a publisher for our blank pages!
Did you get an advance?
Yep, and it’s a blank check from E Kirk! only thing is, the signature’s blank too.
Wow! that’s heavy, that’s beautiful, that’s bliss! The publisher must be a zen master!
Yeah i know but i still have a desire to, er, write something …
Hmm i guess you haven’t reached Nirvana yet then Suzy. But thanks for sharing. And remember, be nice, don’t want it all, human nature is evil, do onto …
Shut up monk! Suzy stands up yawning in her black leather meditation robe and high heels. She takes the leather whip spiked with silver nails from the wall and cracks it once. OK my enlightened one, get into your deep meditation posture, it’s time for our ‘choose to not suffer’ exercise, one strike of the buddha whip for each koan that you answer wrong.
March 31, 2010 at 4:18 pm
lil swimmer in rubber pants
Please can I answer wrong first?!
“Hey Bud, can you spare a nug?”
March 31, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Mitch
Chapter Two: …But Increasingly Likely.
“Oww,” he screamed. “Thank you, sensei.”
“You know,” it’s an interesting distinction between Rabbi Hillel’s ‘don’t do to others’ — crack! oww! — and the Christian Golden Rule. ‘Cause, you know, if I like this treatment but you don’t — crack! oww! — the two rules give completely different advice.”
“Did I see that whip advertised in Tricycle, Suzen?”
The zen mistress towered over him. Her face was indifferent. “What do you do when you get to the top of a ten inch pole?”
He thought. He sweated. No one had warned him that writing could be this difficult. Finally, he smiled an ambiguous smile.
“If Michael Steele was not celebrating faux lesbian sex with GOP donor money,” said the semitic monk, “then why is chicken so much better than tofu?”
Crack!
“Oww! Fuck! Stop that!”
“Try again, or I get out the donbetsu (nipple clamps). No pain, no gain,” said the sensei.
March 31, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Eric Kirk
This thread has certainly taken a post-modern turn.
March 31, 2010 at 4:35 pm
suzy blah blah
OK rubber pants, here’s your nugkoan –what do you get when you take the kids and a pair of whiss clips down to Mexico to separate the good from the evil while watching the HBO movie channel online in your room in Puerto Viarta for Christmas?
March 31, 2010 at 5:24 pm
suzy blah blah
Chapter Three: Con Seated; Sound Bites
After he served her dinner she she dragged him down the old creaking staircase and threw him in the monastery’s cobwebbed dungeon saying, This is what i want you to do to me –but not now, maybe later.
She slammed the cage door shut and locked it.
He got into his cross-legged posture, I’m sorry, he said. It was an honest mistake. I don’t deserve the fate of a common convict. I was trying to do onto, er, that is i wasn’t doing onto, no wait, i was, no i wasn’t no wait…
Cracking the whip, Spit it out you idiot!
I’m sorry, i’m sorry, how was i to know you didn’t want tofu done onto you but preferred to do chicken with your lesbian friends, no wait, preferred to not do tofu but, no wait i’ll get it right, um… no no! not the whip again, please it was an honest mistake, and besides the tofu almost tasted like real chicken and for vegetarians it’s a way to
CRAAAACK!!!
–ouch OUCH!
LOL! Mitch, that was only the sound of my whip, next chapter i’ll be stepping through the time/space/cyber dimension of the bars… right into your cell and giving you a taste of real post modern suffering, and i just might bring my webcam with me so that everyone can watch you as you pretend to smile and choose not to suffer while you eat the tofu SuZy has prepared for you.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!
March 31, 2010 at 5:41 pm
lil swimmer in rubber pants
OK rubber pants, here’s your nugkoan –what do you get when you take the kids and a pair of whiss clips down to Mexico to separate the good from the evil while watching the HBO movie channel online in your room in Puerto Viarta for Christmas? Picketed by local marijuanita union workers?
Mistress Blah Blah? Are there some fancy magic words you incant while feeding tofu cubes?
March 31, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Mitch
Chapter Four: Sticky Bumper?
A digression on monastery dungeons.
Few American Buddhists are fully aware of the several thousand year old Indian tradition of ow-hat-su, roughly translated as “weeks in the monastery dungeon.”
To uneducated eyes, the entrance gateway to ow-hat-su appears to be a cage door. In actuality, however, it is referred to by a Pali expression meaning “this is not a cage door.” The ow-hat entered through the gateway chanting, “I’m not worthy! yet I have attained.”
Ow-hat-su waxed and waned over the centuries. Some scholars believe ow-hat-su peaked when dana was insufficient to provide competitive wages to the priesthood.
For a member of the lay population, ow-hat-su was a great honor. The ow-hat was provided with ten grains of sticky rice each day, as a reminder of the ten thousand things and their insignificance. In addition, a small quantity of tea was sometimes provided. The fee charged the ow-hat was large by the standards of the period, but small to the ow-hats, who were generally children of royalty.
The income from the ow-hat‘s stay was sufficient to keep the sensei-mistress updated with the most fashionable whips of the period; excess income, if any, was distributed to widows and orphans.
A small minority of scholars believe that ow-hat-su may have inspired the indulgences of the medieval Christian church, but there is little unambiguous evidence of this.
Scholars are still uncertain of the ritual significance of the nail-studded whip, though a growing-yet-still-small group believes that it may have represented a concept roughly translatable as “girls just wanna have fun, yeah, amen.”
March 31, 2010 at 5:53 pm
suzy blah blah
Chapter Four, Part one: Wanting More Than One’s Share of Chapters is NOT Evil, (but i concede that it may be conceited, yes)
Suzy reaches for the tofu to feed to Mitch.
Now let’s just see how long you’ll keep that chicken eatin’ grin on your duckface when you taste this.
a crack of the whip on the Rubberpanted one!! the answer is obviously –Feliz Moviedad, duh
March 31, 2010 at 6:17 pm
Mitch
The fifth chapter has been ruined. Here we have a demonstration of original sin, plagiarized sin, and the ninth circle of sin. Sinners lagged by cosinners. Yeah, verily, to the ninetieth degree.
Howard, Howard, Oh, Howard. That is most definitely not bathing the buddha.
And yet.
A moment’s peace, before the great work continues.
There is no Howard but duck, and boobies are the kingdom, forever. I really love you, but if you don’t believe that, you’ll burn in hell.
March 31, 2010 at 6:43 pm
suzy blah blah
That’s OK Mitch we don’t need chapters anyway, remember this is a postmodern, uh, you know what i mean. So we’ll just carry on. But Mitch if we’re ever to be done with this we need to find the bad guy in our who-done-evil story. And now i’ve got my finger on him. It’s Kirk, he’s the tempter. Imagine him thinking that the greater judgment of the universe wouldn’t notice him hanging that tempting picture out there as if nobody’d be tempted to pluck it. But i’ve cleared my own name for god’s sake and Jesus’ and Buddha’s too, because Suzy’s gotta air tight alibi, i once was a lost sinner but now i’ve got my 215 “… and the woman shall tread upon his head”. Kirk’ll likely argue back that he’s innocent cuz Jews are allowed to eat duck or some shit but we got him dead to writes this time. Do you think anybody’d believe that’s a real duck? Looks like tofu to me, just you watch him squirm. LOL watch him pretend not to suffer as i cast him into hell everlasting!
March 31, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Mitch
I’m with you, suzy. Eric is an apostate. I’m not burning in no hell just to keep him happy. And books are so pre-post-literate anyway.
March 31, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Cardinal Sinsei
Bud-ha!
March 31, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Eric Kirk
I am the duck. She is the duck. We are all the duck.
March 31, 2010 at 7:34 pm
suzy blah blah
Books have little letters, they try to contain everything between two little covers, theyre what the Buddhists call Hinayana Mitch, but we’ve grown beyond that now. Bumper stickers is the next other shore and shall liberate the writer from being confined in such narrow restrictions as are presented by the book format. They have large letters and can be read without having to be opened. They do for fine literature what the koan did for Buddhism. Suzy’s says, AM BIG, YOU US –which in Buddhist translates to ‘Mahayana’
March 31, 2010 at 7:35 pm
moviedad
Zen is inevitable; surfing is optional.
April 3, 2010 at 4:59 am
Anonymous
“There is no dark side of the moon. Actually it’s all dark.”
Pink Floyd
April 3, 2010 at 8:36 am
Mitch
Also apropos:
“The lunatics are in my hall.
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more. ”
Pink Floyd