Urban Parsha-Vaetchanan [deut 3:23-7:11]

and so welcome to our first edition of “urban parsha“.  its just like regular torah.  but ghetto.

so this week moses is all like “my bad G. i effed up. i know.  but can you please let me in the crib?”  and Gd’s like “yo moses.  you know you my dude right?  but you is going in with this israel thing, dawg.  i got like 515 voicemails from you. that ish is not cute, na mean?”  so then moses is like “but yo, how i had joseph’s back and he gets to roll up in the crib, but im getting played?”  and Gd is all “nigga plz, i know you not tryna blow up spots. cuz joseph let egypt know he was flagging straight up.  he was like ‘nah, bird-head god.  i phunks with the hebrews.’  thats whassup.”  and moses is like “aight, true dat. respect.”  then Gd’s like “look moses.  real talk?  if i let the jews come through with you to the crib, then when they start acting the fool, imma have to smoke em all, cuz i cant just tell em to bounce cuz you my dude, na mean?  look ill let you peep the crib from nebo, but tell your boy joshua to roll up with the jews later, aight?”

in other events, there was a recap of the ten commandments: “now look, i know some of yall dont know how to listen, so imma say it again.  1-i am the OG, the big G, the only G.  2-dont come this way with nonsense talking bout “imma roll with this next dude right here”. yall roll with me, ride or die. dont test me, cuz my pimp hand is strong. buhlee dat.  3-keep my name out ya mouth when you talking reckless.  4-dont roll on shabbos!  shomer shabbos!  5-dont be talking out your mouth to pops or ma dukes.  you seen that white boy slap his moms on dr phil?  smdh.  6-no killing.  you not that gully and i already got a dude for that.  7-be down with opp if you want. just dont be surprised that “stop, drop, and roll” doesnt work in hell.  8-dont gimme that “it was a five-finger discount” ish.  9- and also dont gimme that “what had happened was…” ish either.  i seent you, nigga.  10-dont be thinking bout how youd having some next dudes shorty open.  if she wanted a one-minute man id have given her to you from the jumpoff.”

finally, we are left with this note: “now in life, you will run up on some shady @zz cats who think they ish is sweet.  dont worry bout them. i got them.  the cal is on them, aight?  peace out.”

[good lord i think i felt brain cells die writing that.  and this is how some people speak?  for real?  cmon now, didnt what you just read seem even vaguely ridiculous?  well thats how you sound.  lets get it together black ppl.  acting black is acting black. acting ghetto is just acting stupid...

...as for "urban parsha"...hey, when something is really, truly, internally yours?  you can have a lot of fun with it.  shabbat shalom.]

–MaNishtana

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The Least Wonderful Time Of The Year…

just some random musings as i mosey along in my fast…

…so i’m davening along in my kinot, fighting off inappropriately timed bouts of sleep, when i hear the chazzan do it.  a lot of chazzans do it.  a lot of the time.  without fail.

the i’m-so-broken-up-that-i’m-sobbing-through-prayer voice.

really guys?  you were good two seconds ago and just now the Ninth of Av [or insert Yom Kippur here] got you so choked up that you are actually sobbing?  a sobbing that will mysteriously clear itself up the second you finish saying the line?  now, i’m all for you actually being so overwhelmed by the feeling and spirituality of the day that you start crying for real [although, i must admit i’ve only witnessed that once, with full on tears on everything]. but honestly that fake crying like you’re a spoiled two year old?  and really, you do realize that you’re actually concentrating more on sounding like you’re sad than actually focusing on the meaning of the words, right? it annoys me and pulls me completely out of what kavanna i was building up.  and if i’m finding it annoying and i’m not even the One you’re actually talking to…well…just saying…

–MaNishtana

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The Ninth of Life

it’s the Ninth of Av again, and as i type this, i find myself lamenting [among other things] the death of the chatroom.  because right about now, i want to talk to some other JOCs.  get their thoughts on today.  because i can’t help but wonder: “do we really need to spend this day contemplating the destruction of the Temple?  having our every thought today occupied with absorbing the severity and gravity of the galut?”

the obvious answer is “yes”.

but i can’t help but note that after 24 hrs of saying kinot and echah, spending the day in woe, and mourning a Temple destroyed due to “baseless hatred”, at about 9:00 tomorrow, the majority of judaism [at least here in america], will go around the corner to their Kosher Delight, or Estihana, or Garden of Eat-In, or Jerusalem Pizza, or kosher Dunkin Donuts or Subway, talk to their neighbors/friends/family about the highs and lows of their fast experience, go to sleep, and the next day it’ll be back to business planning weddings, making shidduchs, going to knesset/shul meetings, tending their family business that thrives in their bustling community, not really giving a second thought [until the ninth rolls around again next year] to the exile that, yeah, they’re aware of, but doesn’t really affect their day-to-day lives.  it’s more of a background white noise, really.

but for typical JOC judaism?  when the fast ends they’ll be checking voicemails from friends [and in some cases, family] who wonder why they didn’t come hang out last night [or for these past three weeks, for that matter].  they’ll probably order a large amount of food they’re not going to eat but have to order anyway since the nearest kosher place is second-star-to-the-right-and-straight-on-till-morning away and the minimum delivery order is $20 [if you're lucky].  or they might just cobble something together from the local Met or Key Food.  they’ll say hello to that neighbor who looks at them weirdly every Shabbat when they’re dressed and heading to knesset/shul [it doesn’t matter whether the neighbor is jewish or not.  or even frum or not].  they might even, like myself, find themselves continuing on with their lives in brooklyn, living [literally and ironically] on the border between “black” [flatbush] and “jewish” [midwood].

unfortunately for JOCS, the galut isn’t as easily ignored.  it’s less “the Ninth of Av” and more like “tuesday.”

the reasons for which are apparent [magnified even] even on this of all days.

a quick read through kinot will reveal at least two dirges dedicated to the Holocaust.  i’m sorry.  i meant dedicated specifically to those who perished in “churban europe” [i.e., poland, germany, lithuania, et al].  however, as i recall [and by “recall” i mean “discovered after copious amounts of research”] in 1935, mussolini [an ally of hitler, you’ll remember] invaded and occupied ethiopia until 1941.  in that time he ordered/oversaw the massacre of 700,000 ethiopian jews who somehow get left out of holocaust history.  and so only “churban europe” happened.

“one may not study torah on the Ninth b/c the study of torah brings joy.”

yes. please, stop me from experiencing the joys of reading the rashi’s racially slanted interpretation of cham in bereshit.  or the backpedaling explanation of how tzippora wasn’t really black or ethiopian, but how “her good deeds were as obvious as an ethiopian’s black skin” in shemot. wtf?

every JOC who reads these and interpretations like these has reason to lament even more deeply than the rest of judaism on the Ninth.  because we acutely know that these trains of thoughts are unapologetically being perpetuated.  because we truly understand how far away Mashiach really is because of them.  how much the “baseless hatred” that destroyed the beit hamikdash hasn’t significantly budged an inch in over 2,000 years.  just imagine if the final redemption kept getting delayed just one second for every odd look a JOC was given on entering a knesset/shul or a judaica store or a kosher supermarket.  or while speaking hebrew.  for every “gut shabbos”  sneezed at a JOC while they’ve been briskly walked past [not to mention the straight up ignored “shabbat shaloms” offered].  for every fingertip handshake given.  every denied “overlooked” or “forgotten” aliyah opportunity in shul.  just putting it out there but does no one else sometimes feel empty or fraudulent saying “l’shana haba’ah birushalayim” on rosh hashana or at seder?  or the rest of the time, you really painfully mean it?  do we really need to drown ourselves in all this today?  it’ll just be the same thing all over again tomorrow.

why do i say all of this?  well i’m a screenwriter who had the ingenious idea of culminating essentially everything i and other JOCS have ever experienced into a screenplay.  it was a grueling and disheartening experience, and it took that stopping and evaluation and culmination for me to truly absorb what a mess us JOCs really are and how f*cked up the world is around us.  no community.  barely tolerated, let alone accepted.  in some cases barely jewish.  in other cases barely ethnic.  it is truly overwhelming and a feeling and reality that permeates JOC lives far beyond the Ninth.

for some reason, this year i can’t bring myself to spend the whole day contemplating what happened 2,000 years past when there is so much festering reality to ponder in the present.  i’m not even sure what my point in this blog is really.  but i guess it’s safe to say that Mixedjewgirl, Jewminicana, and Y-Love have a new neighbor.

–MaNishtana

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