Bloom at the JCC

If you are in NYC, I invite you to an event where I am going to be speaking.

Jews of Color: Wrestling with the Angel of Identity

http://www.jccmanhattan.org/category.aspx?catid=1881&pID=1001

Bloom's Dream or His Task of Sysiphus (The Movie)

Some of you know me personally. Some of you are close friends. Some of you are kind strangers I have met in the web. Some of you are old old friends who probably recognize in me less and less of he who they used to know. In any case, if you really want to understand who I am, what I want to do and what do I hope to do with my life, I recomend you go (especially easy for those of you who are in NYC) this next 26 or 27 of January to the Premier of the movie "The Longing" (in the Lilcoln Center Theaters at Broadway and 67th). This movie, produced and directed by Gabriela Bohm, narrates the difficulties of those Latinos who want to reconnect to their Jewish ancestry. I have not seen the movie yet, and will probably not see it until I return to NYC by the end of the summer, but if it describes the pain and the unnecessary suffering those returning experience dayeinu (It would be enough!). I cannot guarantee that it is a cinematographic masterpiece or that it is a balanced documentary, but it is certainly a pioneer work in a field that could benefit from more media attention and from more public interest.



For those of you who do not live in NY, the webpage of the producer has plenty of information about the movie and about the project. I recommend you watch the trailer (just go to the tab "films" and then choose "The Longing") and look at the stills (two examples of which I bring in this page).

Saudade

I am sick. I have been coughing up my lungs for five days now. I had to give the sermon (devar Torah) at my community this Shabbat although my throat could barely muster a whimper. I am also sick of people not commenting on this blog. I think I have lost all of my Colombian readership with the notable exception of Adon Pronek. In the beginning I wanted to create in this blog a space where I could teach Judaism to a Spanish speaking audience given the paucity of learning of this kind in this language. Alas! We bloggers are creatures of vanity and we do need the little nudges to our overinflated cyberegos once in a while. Therefore, I will switch the language of this blog to English since my Israeli and American friends do seem to care if I live or die. I am sick and grumpy! So there!

Just a surprising song I found in the Jewish blogosphere. You can listen to it in Rua da Judaria (a very nice Portuguese blog about Judaism).

Neighborhood Bully
Bob Dylan

Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man,
His enemies say he’s on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He’s criticized and condemned for being alive.
He’s not supposed to fight back, he’s supposed to have thick skin,
He’s supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He’s wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He’s always on trial for just being born.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he’ll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
‘Cause there’s a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don’t get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won’t be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that’s enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He’s made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one’s command.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He’s the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.

In Bob Dylan: Infidels, 1983

No importa tu ausencia, te sigo esperando

Lector querido, un mes sin escribir nada de nada. No tengo excusas. He estado de vacaciones. Descansando. Escribiendo. Trabajando en otras cosas. No obstante, después de este fin de semana (en el que se celebra Rosh Hashaná) podrán esperar más actividad en ésta su coqueta y hebrea esquina de la red. Posts que tengo preparados (o al mejor estilo perubólico: TAMBBBBBIÉN VIENNNE):

- Un post basado en una foto cordialmente enviada por bluelephant sobre la ignorancia del tema israelí en la izquierda colombiana y sus terribles consecuencias.

- Un post sobre el concepto de "pueblo elegido" (Para que luego la gente no diga barbaridades, como a veces pasa en Conexión Colombia).

- La segunda parte de "Funny, you don´t look Jewish"

Y la muy esperada:

- El retorno de Bloom a Jerusalén: Bloom de vuelta a una de sus ciudades con montañas.

¡No se lo pierda!

My sister is great!

¡Mucha suerte en la sustentación!
Tu hermano que te extraña en esta diáspora áspera,
3.1416

ספר מוצל מהאש

Mi trabajo en el verano no es muy animado. Soy asistente de catalogación de la biblioteca de judáica más grande e importante del hemisferio occidental. La verdad es un trabajo bastante rutinario que ocupa entre cuatro y cinco horas de mi día entre tomos polvorientos en hebreo y en yiddish mientras trato de no inhalar el polvo arsénicoso en el que se convierte el cuero marroquí después de dos siglos. Un trabajo de oficina. Un trabajo gris. Hace unos diez años (cuando todavía leía a Cortázar) me hubiera parecido un trabajo irredimíblemente esperanza. No obstante, a veces este trabajo tiene sus maravillosas recompensas.
Hoy el primer libro en mi carrito era un libro más bien poco atractivo. Un octavito con tapa de cartulina y una etiqueta autoadhesiva con el inconfundible tipo de letra de las editoriales alemanas de antes de la guerra. El libro es una traducción al húngaro de los ensayos del gran pensador sionista Asher Ginsberg, mejor conocido como Ahad Ha-am (lit. uno más del pueblo). El título en Húngaro es Valaszuton, editado por el Comité Sionista de Budapest en esta ciudad entre octubre de 1943 y comienzos de 1944. El editor del libro era el líder sionista Fabián Herskovits, responsable en la reconstrucción de los partidos políticos húngaros después del Holocausto. Un libro normal. Dos minutos de registro y para los estantes.
No obstante, entre las páginas del libro, había una hoja de calendario amarilleada por los años. Uno de esos calendarios que tienen en una sola página toda una semana, comenzando con el día domingo en rojo y perdiéndose por allá por el sábado en días azules con nombres de Santos en húngaro. Una hoja de calendario de la última semana de Mayo de 1944, un recuerdo más de la primavera en Budapest. De pronto, una corriente de aire frío corre por mi espalda. A finales de Mayo de 1944 comenzó la deportación de los judíos y gitanos de Hungría con destino a las cámaras de gas. ¿Acaso poner esta hoja de calendario entre las páginas de un libro nuevo fue la última acción de un jóven entusiasta de Ahad Haam en Budapest antes de cerrar la puerta de su casa para siempre? ¿O acaso este libro acompañó a alguien de su casa al ghetto? ¿Qué manos curtieron la cubierta de cartulina de este libro para que llegue a mí sesenta años después? ¿Qué intención tuvo quién puso este testigo sutil del horror?

Estas son las cosas que hacen que mi trabajo valga la pena.

BOGOSALEN TRANSCONTINENTAL

Friends,

If the Canary Islands count as Africa, then today (May 12th, 2006) this -your local friendly blog on Judaism, philosophy and tropical sabrosura- has become truly trasncontinental -having received hits from all five continents (I know Americans are taught that there are seven continents but we all know that that is patently not true. America is ONE! From the Sea of Baffin to Tierra del Fuego! ONE CONTINENT! And Antartica is not a very interesting continent anyway. My apologies to penguins and frozen scientific researchers). If you do not consider the Canary Islands part of Africa, please help www.bogosalen.blogspot.com reach that milestone: send a link to your friends in South Africa, Marocco, Burundi, Zimbabwe, I do not care. Help me reach true global domination! Oops, sorry, coverage! Yes, that´s it, coverage Pinky!

Crime does not pay

Item #1: Once again Bloom's real synagogue, not his virtual one, was broken into by burglars. This time, given the wiles of Mrs. Bloom and her carefully placed booby traps, we heard them while they were breaking in and were able to call the police. New York's Finest answered in five minutes (way to go guys!), but the burglars were, by then, long gone. I got to see one of them leaving through the door next to our office but not well enough to get him caught. This made for a very interesting sermon and for a clear and non-ambiguous declaration that we will not return to the place unless certain basic -and incredibly simple- security measures be installed. Ah, the pleasures of being in God's army.
Item #2: Colombia, here we go!
Item #3: Happy new year to those of you who hold by the Gregorian division! "Faltan cinco pa' las doce el año va a terminar, me voy corriendo a mi casa a abrazar a mi mamá..."

La gente se burla (en el día más corto del año)

Foto de "El Tiempo", 21 de diciembre 2005

Cuando la gente me viene a visitar a NY se burlan de mí porque yo soy de aquellos que creen que la mejor cosa que uno puede hacer en esta ciudad de mil maravillas y mil planes posibles, incluso antes de pagar cantidades exhorbitantes para ver un show de Broadway o treparse hasta el último piso del Empire State Building, incluso antes de pagar no tan exhorbitantes cantidades de dinero para oir a la NY Philharmonic, o incluso antes de ir a rendir homenaje a John Lennon en Central Park, es cruzar el Brooklyn Bridge en dirección a Manhattan. Desde este centenario gigante (el primer puente de suspensión del mundo) uno puede ver a la Estatua de la Libertad, Ellis Island, y la mole enorme del Distrito Financiero: monumento a la ambición humana y su capacidad para construir. Hoy, gracias al paro de transportes, mucha gente estuvo obligada a mi plan. Aunque no sé si cuando el Brooklyn Bridge se congestiona tanto como Broadway uno pueda parar y ver la Estatua de la Libertad entre los paralelogramos que dibujan las estelas de los barcos y más allá Newark, monstruosa, y más acá, indecisa, una gaviota.

Rabino de cabecera

Honor que me hace el elefante! Dado que sería una injuria defraudarlo, y dado que el post en el que he estado trabajando estos días parece no terminar nunca, y dado que en -desafortunadamente en las universidades colombianas- todavía no hay un departamento de religiones comparadas que se encargue de esto (por ahi se complota y se conspira para construirlo, no obstante) someteré mi blog a una forma de la tiranía del lector (tan famosa o infame en el pasado). Es decir, constestaré tres preguntas dejadas como comentario acerca de Judaísmo en esta próxima semana (Thanksgiving allowing of course). Depende cómo funcione la cosa, esta tiranía podría extenderse ya que, tristemente, este tipo de información es difícil de conseguir en Colombia (Para la muestra un botón: la biblioteca de la Universidad Nacional tiene poco más de cincuenta libros dedicados al tema y éstos no son precisamente los más recientes.) Así que Bloom tratará, en la medida de sus pobres capacidades, de reparar ese bache en la educación colombiana.

Distentio animi

According to the Confessions of man from Hipo time is an extension of our souls. I really love it when my soul stretches so much that I can do my work, learn some Yerushalmi, spend time with the wifey, blog, and read some of the completely obscure things with which I amuse myself. Maybe that's what the Beatles meant with "Rubber Soul". Whatever it is, I love this elasticity!

Where I am now

To all those who commented on the Science and Religion post, thank you. I think you have made a great contribution to the future of this blog which, with podcast taking care of all my personal needs and announcements, will -hopefully, time and God permitting- concentrate more on issues of belief in the twentieth century (I can hear some of my friends groaning there in the back. To them, speak now or forever hold your peace). In that spirit, a great quotation of the JTSer Rebbe -Abraham Joshua Heschel z''l- which pretty much describes where I am now religiously and philosophically:

"The fundamentalists claim that all the ultimate questions have been answered: the logical positivists maintain that the ultimate questions are meaningless. Those of us who share neither the conceit of the former nor the unconcern of the latter, and reject both specious answers and false evasions, know that the ultimate issue is at stake in our existence, the relevance of which surpasses all final formulations. It is this embarrassment that is the starting point for our thinking." From God in Search of Man (1955)

In the face of the incapability of analytical philosophy to provide a convincing philosophical proof of the silliness of our big bad romantic questions about ultimate purpose and its recalcitrant denial of any other model (philosophical or otherwise) for approaching problems, should we begin thinking again in terms of a synthetic philosophy? A rennaissance of dialectic? Or is it just me dreaming?

Frailty (Godpost #1?)

My PC just ate my post so I'll do my best to rewrite it from memory. Most of you know that I have a pulpit in the Bronx. Yesterday, either while we were sleeping or preparing for the coming festivity of Simchat Torah, some burglars broke into the building. They cut the padlocks on the fridges of the kitchen and, as far as we know, took a phone but no food. They did bend the locks on the synagogue's food pantry to the point were it is impossible to open it anymore. Vandalism? Miracle? I don't know. What I do know is that I am incredibly grateful that I slept through the ordeal: God knows that fighting thugs (especially in one's pijamas) is not a skill chubby and outgoing rabbis tend to be proficient in. And though so far nothing of worth was stolen, we all know the feelings of violation and insecurity that follow such an event. I remember growing up in Cedritos and having my house broken into constantly so the uncomfortable feeling is somewhat familiar. Nevertheless it does come to show how frail our securities are. We trust thin sheets of glass to protect us from each other's greed. We trust thick bars of iron to shield us from humanity's oft random murderous intent. We trust the men in white to protect us from disease, from decrepitude, from excessive fat, from our own gluttony. Alas! No wall is thick enough. No building is safe enough, either from the force of nature or the cunning of evil in men. So we have to face our frailty. We have to acknowledge that our bodies are not eternal. That sometimes the innocent (however you want to define the innocent) suffer. That there are people that will hurt you to satisfy their greed, their lust. And, if you happen to fall on the bad side of some people's prejudices, there are men out there who seek your annihilation. Confronted with frailty and the fact that this certainly does not seem to be the best of all possible worlds (despite Mr. Leibniz's learned proofs) there are, in my opinion, three possible answers: despair, wisdom and faith. Despair, despite its lacrimous associations, often wears a smiling mask. When our highest achievements can be loaded into an ipod, when we seek the meaning of our life in the mall and in the glittering paths of Times Square, we have despaired from life meaning any more than that. We desperately seek to forget our frailty by embracing the loud world of hiccupping computers and of fat-free-no-committment-satisfaction-guaranteed-or-your-money-back world of results. Wisdom, so rare in these days, requires looking frailty in the eye and understanding its unavoidability with Roman Stoic virility. Memento mori! How I wish I could be wise. And then there is faith. Alas! Sometimes the hardest thing is having faith in faith. We believe that faith is too lofty for us sinners and that it requires a leap, a jump into the reasonless and often angry world of the gayhatingrockhurlingayatolahfollowingselfflogging fanatics. If my faith is not able to move mountains then it is not a faith worth its salt. Yet, faith can also be a reasoned optimism, small and unpretentious, and, most importantly, not blind. This small faith, however, is oftentimes enough. At least for me. Shalom.

Y ahora estoy aquí, queriendo convertir los campos en ciudad....(you know the rest)

En esta época de huracanes, de incertidumbre, de anunciadas reelecciones, de vitalicios emperadores, de calabazas desolladas, de triquitriquijalogüín, de [aparentemente interminables] fiestas judías, de frío que se va instalando lento y apoltronado en las calles mojadas de Manna Hatta, de grandes revelaciones, de regresos de la tierra del frío, de expectativas, de lindas fotos en catedrales medievales, Bloom quiere dejar en claro que no ha abandonado éste, su bully pulpit, su cajita de jabón binaria y lustrosa desde la que no se queja mucho (a pesar de que en un mundo de tiranos y de Darfur, de hambre y de fiebre aviar, de miedo y de guerra y sobretodo de falta de fe en Aquel en cuya semejanza nos imaginamos posibles no faltan razones para quejarnos), desde la que las más veces comete poesía y pone cosas que la gente lee y que, de cierto modo extraño, les garantiza que en esta ciudad sin montañas hay un hebreo montañero que sigue, rotundo y tranquilo, machacando estas teclas y esperando lo mejor para todos ustedes: aquellas personas que me leen y que me conocen, o que no me conocen pero a fuerza de leerme saben que existo. Shalom.

El sur del norte

Después de un delicioso viaje y vacación en el sur de los Estados Unidos heme aquí de vuelta en la gran ciudad manzanosa. En relación a mi viaje, he de decir que a pesar de estar en Orlando no fui a Disney (y no por falta de ganas, ya que desde que recuerdo he querido sacarme una foto con el pato Donald) sino por falta de tiempo. El viaje a la Florida, más que un viaje de placer, fue una misión de rescate, la cual, gracias a Dios, salió a pedir de boca. Ahora, el Sur de los Estados Unidos (así con mayúscula, en tanto entidad independiente) es un sitio bien interesante. La gente es extremadamente amable, mucho más allá de la cortesía manhattanense del customer service y del political correctness, genuinamente querida y jovial. El paisaje es bastante particular, combinando pantanos y pinos con un calor infernal y, ya en la Florida, unos paisajes verdaderamente anapoimeños (aunque planos como una arepa). Las secciones de no fumadores, ubicuas en esta isla, son tan convencionalmente inútiles como un avisito pequeño que dice NO SMOKING al lado del baño, lo cual verdaderamente hace que uno se sienta en otro país. Cosa confirmada por la mesera forrada en raso amarillo que balancea en su bandeja toneladas increíbles de tocino, waffles, café mientras fuma Marlboro tras Marlboro sobre una sartén adecuadamente cubierta con centímetros y centímetros de grasa milenaria. Pequeñas epifanías sureñas que hacen que uno se sienta Jack Kerouac. Visitamos el pequeño pueblo donde creció mi esposa; en Colombia llamaríamos a esto un caserío: una estación de policía, una droguería, una estación de tren abandonada. Todo muy florideano, muy de la casa: naranjales y casitas portátiles-juguetes para los huracanes. Hasta me darían ganas de vivir acá, entre la gente amable, feliz y brillante, sino fuera por la prolífera presencia de banderas confederadas (y no en su inocente versión encima del carro de los Dukes -¿Duques? ¿los Duque?- de Hazzard) y de camiones que dicen "Trucking with Jesus".

El último zapatista de Carolina del Norte...

Ándale, Ándale! Arriba, arriba! Epa...

De paseo por el sur...

El Sur del Sur

Paseando por el sur de los Estados Unidos, lugar fascinante y terrorífico a la vez, amable y agresivo en una sola frase, uno se encuentra con estas maravillas del kitsch que a pesar de estar en el mismo país del Political Correctness nos asombran con su...este...hem...osadía? En fin, fotos lobas que serán actualizadas cuando vuelva de mis vacaciones en estos Disneys extendidos from sea to shinning sea.

Bloom

Más kitsch....

No, Flipper, No!

My neighborhood

mi barrio circa 1904

I live on the second corner to the right, half a block up the street. 101 years into the future. How many deeds on such a street? How many passions? How many dreary walks under the scorching New York summer sun? From when this place was an Schorrakin village until this lazy Friday and from now up to the moment when I am nothing but a hopefully righteous memory? Buildings are stronger than men. Memory is stronger than buildings. Shabbat Shalom.

Pleased I am, mmmm

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