Arch the Hyperpotamian

Cishet, Pronouns: he/him Hello! I'm a religious Orthodox Jew, I live in Israel and I like books - mostly Fantasy, though I occasionally venture into Sci-Fi. You may call me Trutharchivist (my name in other places), Arch and maybe some other names.

[hyperpotamianarch]

Introduction

My name is Arch. That's not my real name, obviously. I can't tell you my real name, because Internet safety. Not because I'm afraid of alien slugs taking over my brain (anymore).

That aside, I'm currently 23 years old, which means that even if I was recruited to fight an alien invasion, I wouldn't be a child soldier! Still can't say I'm excited to do that.

I'm a religious Orthodox Jew who likes Fantasy (and sometimes Sci-Fi, with the occasional but rare Horror), and those are the topics you're most likely to hear about from me: Jewish practices, the books I've read/shows I've watched/podcasts I've listened to, and the occasional overlap between the two. In addtion, I might occasionally talk about Jewish history, randomly rant about how translations and transliterations of the Hebrew Bible are horrible, or make a hopeless attempt at writing a book. Maybe, one day.

Forewarning: I'm a fan of long content. I enjoy writing long pieces and reading them, and fully intend to keep doing so here.

I enjoy good art related to my favourite fandoms, though nothing NSFW. In addition, I like talking about those fandoms. Said fandoms include (apparently) Animorphs, His Dark Materials (when it comes to art - especially Mulefa. I"m very interested in dæmons as well, though, and feel free to ask me about the religion part), the Owl House (apparently), the Magnus Archives (sometimes), the Good Place (mostly discussion, but art is fine too I guess), Diana Wynne Jones stuff and some others. I like diving into random topics sometimes, which is also something to note in what content to expect.

As mentioned, I'm not keen on NSFW stuff. I also don't want to get into discussing politics. At all. Religious discussions are fine, as long as they don't veer into antisemitism or involve personal attacks.

Hebrew transliteration guide for my posts.

That's it for now. Hope you'll find my content enjoyable! Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

[hyperpotamianarch]

You know what's fun about having a culture that has a mesh of Jewish, Roman and Greek roots?

That you can treat Latin, Ancient Greek and Hebrew as three magical and peculiar languages, without acknowledging that two of these cultures have direct descendants with way less amalgamation involved who might be annoyed at being treated like exotic and archaic myths.

Anyway, about 75% of Western mythos is based on Greek and Jewish myths, but we're fine with ignoring this because we can just call it Christianity and be done. That would be mo hot take for today.

[harbinger-of-silly]

All gays will go to hellsite

[king-of-oreo]

What if in hellsite but not gay

[punky-beaver-offical]

[king-of-oreo]

NO!

[avhira]

[hellsitegenetics]

String identified: A ga g t t at t t t ga T tag g a Ag agag Acctac ! T tag g a Ag agag Acctac

Closest match: Psylliodes chrysocephala genome assembly, chromosome: 4 Common name: Cabbage Stem Flea Beetle

(image source)

[graveexcitement]

[kebbopulos]

[spaghettihell]

[hyperpotamianarch]

Great, congratulations and all.

On another note, the original sentence is functionally identical to "for all x, if x gay then x go to hellsite". Thus, if one isn't gay, formal logic dictates that it doesn't matter whether or not one goes to hellsite. As such, as a non-gay denizen of the hellsite, I do not violate the OP statement.

However, if you somehow have gay friends who aren't on the hellsite, that would be an actual problem.

[maimonideznuts-temporary]

Glad it was just tumblr being dumb but I saw the image and it is uncannily pussy-like.

I know, I thought it was hilarious... Once upon a time it really wouldn't have mattered how pussy like those toes were.

Here I am in the penalty box and the porn bots just go about their scammy business like nothing happens

[agam-shel-barvadim]

bruh

[hyperpotamianarch]

Huh, I was wondering what happened. Saw you were deactivated.

[fipindustries]

I cannot stand the parodies of modern major general, they're overdone and simply not as good as the original. They've done them about everything, whatever topic, big or small.

And when i notice one of them my eyes will always start to roll.

The diction's always slurry when they rush the complicated words, and adding many fricatives will turn it so cacophonous. The slanted rhymes are silly and they keep just making more and more, please someone stop the parodies of modern major general.

The scanning of the lyrics in the meter is unbearable, they emphazise the syllables in ways that are untenable, in short in matters musical, prosodic and ephemeral, i cannot stand the parodies of modern major general!

[unorthodoxchronicles]

[agam-shel-barvadim]

guys. as bad as things are. the reason tumblr marks a bunch of Jewish pictures as mature is most likely not due to antisemitism but rather due to this website marking literally anything as mature. i have seen picture of TREES marked as mature here. like cmon.

[hyperpotamianarch]

This doesn't necessarily negate some antisemitism, but fair enough.

I think there might be a trend of posts with pictures of Tefillin marked as mature, but I don't really have a decent sample size and you're not wrong, with how random posts are tagged mature it's likely to be a coincidence.

[sniper-at-the-gates-of-heaven]

meir gal, nine out of four hundred: the west and the rest (1997)

the artist holds up the official textbook of jewish history used in israeli schools, by the only 9 pages which refer to jewish history from asia and africa. “these books helped establish a consciousness that the history of the jewish people took place in eastern europe and that mizrahim have no history worthy of remembering.” read his statement here.

[jewishgay4il]

shockingly, the notes are just full of antisemites who most definitely don’t care about mizrahi jews either

[hyperpotamianarch]

I am, admittedly, morbidly curious.

But point, this is actually true. I find that I know all too little about Mizrahi history of recent times (the last three hundred years at the very least, which is a period of interest for me), and what little I do know seems to focus on European influence.

[magnetothemagnificent]

Saying "I don't hold by the sliding timescale" in the same tone a frum person would about something they're machmir about that they don't hold by the prevailing psak for. Saying "I don't hold by the sliding timescale" in the same self-righteous tone my brother does when talking about a hechsher he doesn't hold by. Lol.

[hyperpotamianarch]

#I don’t actually know what the sliding time scale is (I’m guessing a marvel comics timeline thing)#But I support yeshivish English posting o7

Disclaimer: I've never been involved with the marvel comics fandom, all my data comes from wikia articles. Usually Wikipedia, but marvel wikia as well.

To my understanding, the sliding timescale is a way to explain how comics are always written in a contemporary to the publishing setting while at the same time keeping the characters at roughly similar ages. Like, spiderman came out for the first time around the 1960s, IIRC, and was a high school student. By all accounts, if he's written with a smartphone during the last couple of decades - which he was, because Marvel is usually written as if it's occuring in a roughly contemporary setting - he should be in his seventies. But he isn't, pretty sure the current Peter Parker is around his 30s at most.

So the explanation is that the timescale is slowly sliding. If current Peter Parker is in his 30s, making him a 90s kid, he was bitten by a spider in the early 2000s. The original Peter Parker was bitten by a spider during the early '60s. It's just that, over the years, the canonical events have slowly moved forward in time with the contemporary depiction.

OP can probably explain it better, and I might be completely wrong. I think an alternative explanation would be that the Marvel universe is just progressing quicker than our world did, which would honestly make sense, but won't explain it if flashbacks would have anachronistic technology.

And that's it for trying to confidently talk about Marvel comics in the reblogs of Magnetothemagnifiscent! Surely nothing bad can come from it!

[magnetothemagnificent]

Yeah you've covered just about it.

The thing about Marvel is that they have a lot of characters who are very tied specifically to a specific point in history, such as WWII and the Cold War, so things don't work as neatly as "well now instead of everything starting in 1960, they start in 1990" because of those characters. And the problem is that there are a lot of characters that Marvel and the fandom don't consider importantly tied to specific points in history, but I would say that they are, and screwing up the timeline screws them up too.

Captain America is a big one. Marvel keeps pushing up when he was defrosted. He was first defrosted in the 1960s. Then the 70s. Then the 90s. And now, most recently, the 2000s post 9/11. And I am very adamant that you can't defrost Steve Rogers any time after the Watergate scandal, and certainly not after the AIDS crisis and then especially not after 9/11, because these events are very important in Steve Rogers's character development and especially to the characters he's tied to. Steve's childhood best friend is Arnie Roth, a regular human who was a young adult in the 1940s. Steve is supposed to reunite with him when Arnie is middle aged and be able to have time with him to get to know him and the life he lived while he was gone, including that Arnie was gay and in a long and committed relationship with another man, before Arnie eventually dies in the 90s from cancer. So y'know. All that really isn't possible if Steve defrosts in the 90s and certainly not in the early 2000s. And then there's Jack Monroe, the third Bucky from the 1950s, who eventually has his own really special character arc that involves touring the country during the 1990s while learning about AIDS (and even getting tested for HIV and having a very open ended resolution where it's unclear whether he tested positive or not) and the War on Drugs. The comic run is extremely 90s and really can't exist in any other time period. But if Steve defrosted after that, then he'd have no time to meet Jack Monroe and spur him to this journey (Jack only went on this road trip because he was taken in by Steve. It's a whole thing). And Marvel just......doesn't seem to get that. And they don't get that it's really important for Steve Rogers to have experienced Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan as presidents, who show up quite prominently in his comics. It's why I'm not willing to move his defrosting any later than the early 1970s.

And then there's the Fantastic Four. While I don't think it's super important that Reed Richards and Ben Grimm were specifically WWII veterans (I think it would work just as well for them to have been Korean War veterans), I do think it's important that Victor von Doom was around for the Porajmos, the genocide of the Romani people as part of the Holocaust. Dr. Doom was made a Holocaust survivor decades before Magneto was, and I honestly think it's really crucial to his character. While there can be the arguement that the continued persecution of Romani people (especially in Europe) would be enough of a backstory for Doom, Marvel doesn't really do that well anyway, and I think specifically the experience of the Holocaust is important, and moving the timeline so it's not a part of Dr. Doom's backstory whitewashes his character. So at the very least Victor should have been a child during WWII (rather than a young adult in the original Silver Age comics), but the timeline can't be manipulated any further than that.

Professor X, as well, is quite tied to Gabrielle Haller, a Holocaust survivor and the mother of his child, David. Gabrielle Haller has to meet Charles Xavier when y'know, she's still able to have kids. So messing up the timeline so that Charles was born much later also screws up Gabrielle and David Haller. And it's super important that Gabrielle was a Holocaust survivor. And then there's Moon Knight, whose backstory originally was that he was deeply traumatized by his experience of being the son of a Holocaust survivor and the continued antisemitism he experienced. The psychological experience of the children of Holocaust survivors is really quite unique and I think messing up the timeline so that his father is no longer a Holocaust survivor really just screws everything up. I think perhaps it could be salvaged if Moon Knight was raised by survivor grandparents, but Marvel won't do that, so......

There are just so many other characters that are tied to specific points in history. And I think the issue of their ages really could be resolved creatively. It's comics, after all. Healing factors, de-aging serums and machines, reality manipulation, etc, are all plot points that have already been done numerous times. I think it's perfectly possible for Iron Man to be generationally a Baby Boomer while also looking like he's in his 40s in the 2020s. Because it's comics, and anything is possible.

Anyway.

That's why I don't hold by the sliding timescale. I have a 35 pages and counting (I'm constantly adding things to it as I cover more and more characters and events) document with the Marvel timeline as I understand it without having to slide the timescale. And if I can do it, so can Marvel.

[darkestbrook]

[gaysie]

i love fiction so much can we never be real again

[you-are-not-real]

well you see

[hyperpotamianarch]

So, today I (possibly illegally) made another step in my task to figure out what the hell was going on with Ittamar ben Avi. Still on the latinization of Hebrew, because you can't expect me to just leave this topic.

So, here's the thing: Mr. Ben Avi has apparently published a book written entirely in latinized Hebrew. It's not too long, but I didn't read it for reason I'll clarify in a moment. You see, there's a copy of the book in the National Library of Israel, or possibly multiple copies. But I have no idea how one borrows a book from there, so I just went in to look for it on the shelves.

Challenge number one: entry requires a reader's card. Thankfully, that was easy enough to achieve and required zero payment. Went over quickly.

Challenge number two: find the darn book. To no one's surprise, the National Library, which gets at least one copy of every book that gets published in over forty copies (IIRC) in Israel, is big. Very big. One might say huge. And the directions to where the book I was looking for was were unclear. They just said it was part of the Shalom collection and listed a shelf. But I had no idea where this Shalom collection ought to be. So after wandering about a bit and discovering that the shelf number I got was too high for anything in the collections I walked around, I gave up and looked it up in the Internet, and lo, I discover it's actually the Sholem collection, as in Gershom Sholem. Yes, the world renown Kabbalah scholar apparently donated his library to the National Library. Naturally, this collection is more or less most of their Kabbalah collection. So yes, a random book by the first Hebrew Boy, as he is called, is apparently at the same section of the library as kabbalah books. It's also a somewhat isolated corner, and only researchers are allowed to sit there apparently? So I just stood by the shelf and read the book there. Which, yeah, this is why I didn't read it all. There's a limit to what I'm willing to read in one standing, as it were.

There are some matters of interest there. First, ben Avi claims that a major barrier for studying Hebrew is studying the letters. I'm considering to try and question people about it here, because really? Is learning the Hebrew alphabet that hard?

Another point he brings up is that many other nations already worked on their latinization. He brings up Turkish (rightfully) and Japanese and Chinese. Both of which famously still commonly use their own writing systems. Ah well.

Apparently he's basing his writing system on French to a certain degree, probably because he studied in Paris for some time. That possibly explains why he's so comfortable with using ” for ע, since every time quotation marks are needed he uses the French «».

The possibly illegal part was the fact I took a picture of the pages where he explained the transliteration rules. In all honesty, the writing was readable enough without knowing them. I managed to read most of the preface, though he had way too many errors there. The vowels were the one thing I was completely unsure about, as they had lots of accents which seemed needless to me. But to get back on topic, I'm pretty sure that the copyright has passed, but out of a degree of caution I'm going to only use the pictures privately.

I do find it curious that the J as ע idea doesn't seem to be present in ben Avi's transliteration just yet. Either way, I'm pondering starting a new gimmick blog just to use this way of writing Hebrew, will consider which system to use.

[coalescedstardust]

As someone who did not grow up with any Hebrew and now teaches it to kids, I can assure you that learning the Hebrew alphabet is not that hard.

Hebrew education in most American synagogues spends way too much time on the alphabet and phonics, to the near exclusion of learning anything about the actual language. I've found that it's a lot more effective to focus on the actual language as soon as possible. The skill of sounding it out will be practiced naturally, and it'll be retained a lot better - people remember words with meaning a lot more easily than they remember strings of meaningless sounds.

This style of Hebrew education seems to be based on the same premise that the Hebrew alphabet is too hard, but taken to the opposite conclusion ("let's just drill everyone in sounding it out for years on end, we can't expect them to learn any more than that because it's already so hard").

[hyperpotamianarch]

Take that, Ben Avi! Your sample of French university students and a bunch of Jewish boys and girls in New York during WWI isn't actually a good example!

(I also suspect he had bias towards the Latin alphabet, since he starts the aforementioned preface by claiming he asked his father why he didn't work on the latinization of Hebrew at a young age. Which implies this was a project of his for a long time.)

[rimonoroni]

how little angels matter in Judaism is kind of funny to me. it’s like yeah The Lord has little dudes that carry out his will on earth. of course he does. who are these little dudes? don’t worry about it

[rimonoroni]

the torah is like this about a lot of things actually. yeah so there are two human beings in the history of humanity that have never died, those people being eliyahu and enoch. wondering what the fuck that means and where they are now? i dunno. stop asking me. what are you, a cop

[rimonoroni]

there is a reason for this tendency, of course.

what you have to understand about the torah is that it isn't just a book of mythology with narratives, it's also a law code.

so you get a lot of "here is the exact measurement of ditch you can dig in the common grounds of town before someone falling into it is entitled to financial compensation" which, to a modern audience, is boring!

but to an ancient people in eternal diaspora trying to maintain rules that people respect, is very very valuable and more practical than meanderings about the lives of old dead guys, no matter how significant those old dead guys may have been.

[frustratedasatruar]

A lot of my fellow gentiles seem to assume that the Torah is the result of ancient Yisraelis writing down everything about God, and that therefore all the random iron-age minutia in it must come with some sort of divine punishment to it.

And sure, technically, their religion related to these things... but only insofar as was normal in the era. The Romans had an entire Deity who governed over boundary markers. But Boundary markers weren't important because there was a God governing such things, there was a God governing such things because it was important.

[rimonoroni]

i love it when rabbis just say things. i love midrash. i love Judaism. i love us

[hyperpotamianarch]

Reminds me of that time I randomly mentioned Bava Batra to some Goyische acquaintances. They opened it, and upon reading a random section wondered how this applies to the eternal nature of divinity. Which led to the hard task of explaining to Christians what the Talmud actually is. Though to be fair, Bava Batra is 100% the most shocking place to start if you expected for things to apply to the eternal nature of divinity. Even Zevachim would make more sense.

[mossadspydolphin]

Is Bava Batra the one with the Biggus Dickus story?

[hyperpotamianarch]

No. Bava Batra is the one with the 175 pages, most of which discuss ownership of land.

You see, the problem is that tumblr might have you think that the Talmud is made of a lot of these sexually explicit portions. And, like, they exist, but the likelihood of the average person opening a page of Talmud and finding the dick comparison story - even if they opened the tractate in which it is - is low. They are much more likely to find something that looks like court procedures, because they are the very topic of some Masechtot.

I get why you're asking, but no, people can be shocked by the mundanity of the Talmud, not just the possible profanity.

So no, you were probably thinking of Bava Metzi‘a.

[hyperpotamianarch]

So, today I (possibly illegally) made another step in my task to figure out what the hell was going on with Ittamar ben Avi. Still on the latinization of Hebrew, because you can't expect me to just leave this topic.

So, here's the thing: Mr. Ben Avi has apparently published a book written entirely in latinized Hebrew. It's not too long, but I didn't read it for reason I'll clarify in a moment. You see, there's a copy of the book in the National Library of Israel, or possibly multiple copies. But I have no idea how one borrows a book from there, so I just went in to look for it on the shelves.

Challenge number one: entry requires a reader's card. Thankfully, that was easy enough to achieve and required zero payment. Went over quickly.

Challenge number two: find the darn book. To no one's surprise, the National Library, which gets at least one copy of every book that gets published in over forty copies (IIRC) in Israel, is big. Very big. One might say huge. And the directions to where the book I was looking for was were unclear. They just said it was part of the Shalom collection and listed a shelf. But I had no idea where this Shalom collection ought to be. So after wandering about a bit and discovering that the shelf number I got was too high for anything in the collections I walked around, I gave up and looked it up in the Internet, and lo, I discover it's actually the Sholem collection, as in Gershom Sholem. Yes, the world renown Kabbalah scholar apparently donated his library to the National Library. Naturally, this collection is more or less most of their Kabbalah collection. So yes, a random book by the first Hebrew Boy, as he is called, is apparently at the same section of the library as kabbalah books. It's also a somewhat isolated corner, and only researchers are allowed to sit there apparently? So I just stood by the shelf and read the book there. Which, yeah, this is why I didn't read it all. There's a limit to what I'm willing to read in one standing, as it were.

There are some matters of interest there. First, ben Avi claims that a major barrier for studying Hebrew is studying the letters. I'm considering to try and question people about it here, because really? Is learning the Hebrew alphabet that hard?

Another point he brings up is that many other nations already worked on their latinization. He brings up Turkish (rightfully) and Japanese and Chinese. Both of which famously still commonly use their own writing systems. Ah well.

Apparently he's basing his writing system on French to a certain degree, probably because he studied in Paris for some time. That possibly explains why he's so comfortable with using ” for ע, since every time quotation marks are needed he uses the French «».

The possibly illegal part was the fact I took a picture of the pages where he explained the transliteration rules. In all honesty, the writing was readable enough without knowing them. I managed to read most of the preface, though he had way too many errors there. The vowels were the one thing I was completely unsure about, as they had lots of accents which seemed needless to me. But to get back on topic, I'm pretty sure that the copyright has passed, but out of a degree of caution I'm going to only use the pictures privately.

I do find it curious that the J as ע idea doesn't seem to be present in ben Avi's transliteration just yet. Either way, I'm pondering starting a new gimmick blog just to use this way of writing Hebrew, will consider which system to use.

[yesornopolls]

Have you gone to your native country’s capital city? (At least one of them if your country has multiple)

Have you gone to your native country’s capital city? (At least one of them if your country has multiple)

Yes

No

Remaining time: 2 days 13 hours

[fibey234]

Let's learn some Hebrew quotes! (^_^)

Haver (חבר) = Friend.

Okev (עוקב) = Follower.

Reshatot hevratiot (רשתות חברתיות) = Social media

Shalom (שלום) = Hello.

Lehitra'ot (להתראות) = See you soon.

Boker tov (בוקר טוב) = Good morning.

Tzhaoraim tovim (צהריים טובים) = Good afternoon.

Erev tov (ערב טוב) = Good evening.

Layla tov (לילה טוב) = Good night.

Halom (חלום) = Dream.

Halomot mitgashmim (חלומות מתגשמים) = Dreams come true.

Toda (תודה) = Thank you.

Bevakasha (בבקשה) = You are welcome // Please.

Slicha (סליחה) = Sorry.

Ken (כן) = Yes.

Lo (לא) = No.

Kamuvan! (כמובן) = Of course!

Atem col-cach metukim (אתם כל כך מתוקים) = You are so sweet.

Atem madhimim (אתם מדהימים) = You are amazing.

Mehamem (מהמם) = Stunning.

Hibuk (חיבוק) = Hug.

Ahahava (אהבה) = Love.

Ahot (אחות) = Sister.

Ah (אח) = Brother.

Aba (אבא) = Father.

Ima (אמא) = Mother.

Ahim (אחים) = Siblings.

Mishpaha (משפחה) = Family.

Hamud (חמוד) = Cute // Lovely.

Oy vey zmir! (אוי-ויי זמיר) = Oh my goodness!

Be'ezrat Hashem (בעזרת השם) = With the help of G-D.

Baruch Hashem (ברוך השם) = Thank G-D.

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

Quick note: "oy vey iz mir" (woe is me!) is Yiddish, not Hebrew. Note the similarity between "iz mir" and the English "is me"--they're both Germanic languages. It's safe to assume a lot of Yiddish loanwords and expressions have slipped into Modern Hebrew, given that the early aliyot came from the Yiddish-speaking heartlands. Unsurprisingly, there's a fair amount of Arabic and English as well ("yalla," "matimatika"). I think "oy vey iz mir" is spelled אוי ויי איז מיר but I'm not 100% sure. Those double yuds are used in Yiddish to represent the "ey" sound. Then again, on the rare occasions where Hebrew uses vav as a consonant, two vavs are usually used to indicate that it isn't a vowel. So it might actually be אוי וויי.

"Zmira" (זמירה) is a type of religious song, usually sung after a meal on Shabbat or holidays. In my experience, singing zmirot is a communal activity, usually done after a Shabbes luncheon immediately before benching. Sort of like pregaming the singing of Birkat haMazon. Most of the songs are in Hebrew, but I've heard Ladino songs, and I'm sure there are Yiddish songs, too. The body of zmirot has been built up over the centuries, with many going back to the Middle Ages. There's a bunch of different tunes for each one. Anyways! It doesn't make sense to say "oy vey zmir." I don't think zmir is even a word, I think the masculine form is zemer (don't quote me on that).

Finally, you need, need, NEED to differentiate between the "h" sound and the sound of chet/chaf. They are VERY different sounds! It's usually romanized as "ch" or "kh." The person who transliterated here actually switched back and forth a few times--notice how "slicha" and "Baruch HaShem" are spelled. Yes, I know "ch" is a difficult sound for English speakers, and if you struggle to say it, it's okay. But they are different sounds and different letters, and you need to reflect that in your spelling. Otherwise people are going to mispronounce these words (because they don't know they should be trying for the ch). The more accurate transliterations:

Chaver (חבר) = Friend.

Reshatot chevratiot (רשתות חברתיות) = Social media

Chalom (חלום) = Dream.

Chalomot mitgashmim (חלומות מתגשמים) = Dreams come true.

Chibuk (חיבוק) = Hug.

Achot (אחות) = Sister. This is also the word for "nurse," by the way (that usage comes from the Brits)

Ach (אח) = Brother.

Achim (אחים) = Siblings.

Mishpacha (משפחה) = Family.

Chamud (חמוד) = Cute // Lovely.

"With the help of God" is the literal meaning of "Be'ezrat Hashem," but the phrase is used the same way "God willing" is used in English. "Be'ezrat Hashem I'll get out early and miss traffic!"

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

aaaaaaaand then I looked at OP’s profile this morning and they’re Israeli 💀💀💀💀💀 talk about americansplaining! idk, maybe they DO say oy vey zmir in Israel 🤷🏻‍♀️

[hyperpotamianarch]

Israeli here, yes and no. It's not too common, but in my mind it was always spelled אוי ויי זמיר. However, it clearly comes from Yiddish, so this might be a case of people wrongfully spelling and pronouncing the phrase.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Having electricity in my home is so great. Most of the humans that have ever lived didn't have this.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I can be like "I want a cup of hot tea" and I can go and make one and I don't have to light a fire or anything.

[zmyaro]

I don't have to light a fire or anything.

Several rabbis have entered the chat.

[hyperpotamianarch]

Electricity isn't fire!

(Said the Chazon Ish, while believing it's constructing or Makeh BePatish)

[rimonoroni]

how little angels matter in Judaism is kind of funny to me. it’s like yeah The Lord has little dudes that carry out his will on earth. of course he does. who are these little dudes? don’t worry about it

[rimonoroni]

the torah is like this about a lot of things actually. yeah so there are two human beings in the history of humanity that have never died, those people being eliyahu and enoch. wondering what the fuck that means and where they are now? i dunno. stop asking me. what are you, a cop

[rimonoroni]

there is a reason for this tendency, of course.

what you have to understand about the torah is that it isn't just a book of mythology with narratives, it's also a law code.

so you get a lot of "here is the exact measurement of ditch you can dig in the common grounds of town before someone falling into it is entitled to financial compensation" which, to a modern audience, is boring!

but to an ancient people in eternal diaspora trying to maintain rules that people respect, is very very valuable and more practical than meanderings about the lives of old dead guys, no matter how significant those old dead guys may have been.

[frustratedasatruar]

A lot of my fellow gentiles seem to assume that the Torah is the result of ancient Yisraelis writing down everything about God, and that therefore all the random iron-age minutia in it must come with some sort of divine punishment to it.

And sure, technically, their religion related to these things... but only insofar as was normal in the era. The Romans had an entire Deity who governed over boundary markers. But Boundary markers weren't important because there was a God governing such things, there was a God governing such things because it was important.

[rimonoroni]

i love it when rabbis just say things. i love midrash. i love Judaism. i love us

[hyperpotamianarch]

Reminds me of that time I randomly mentioned Bava Batra to some Goyische acquaintances. They opened it, and upon reading a random section wondered how this applies to the eternal nature of divinity. Which led to the hard task of explaining to Christians what the Talmud actually is. Though to be fair, Bava Batra is 100% the most shocking place to start if you expected for things to apply to the eternal nature of divinity. Even Zevachim would make more sense.