passover seder 5770 (4)

The theme of the seder as offered by my brother in law's brother and sister in law was Obama sucks.
I stayed quiet.
("We will see where Obama's leadership will lead us," and so we cannot really tell at this time, is not much of a counterargument.)
Asked big Lerner who is Bibi's truest confidant and he wouldn't venture a suggestion. Is it Meridor or is it Begin or Yaalon is the question.
As usual I presented my quiz during the meal. I gave clues regarding movies that occur in Egypt (although referencing Egypt was good enough and one of them was a novel.) The answers were:
1. Ten Commandments
2. Lawrence of Arabia
3. Cleopatra
4. The Key to Rebecca (not a movie)
5. The English Patient
6. The Mummy (that's a wrap)
7. Raiders of the Lost Ark
Joel Cairo (Maltese Falcon character whose last name is an Egyptian city)
Five Graves to Cairo (there is no y in egypt. my dad got that, and i was pleased.)
then the vorts on root word chpz-
The nursemaid of Mefiboshet
The army of Aram. Their camp discovered by the lepers. (haftara of Metzora)
David while fleeing from Saul.
and alma.
While Moses is in the basket of reeds.
The alma who gets pregnant and gives birth to Emanuel.
Rachel when referred to in the conversation between Eliezer and Laban.
David when referred to by Saul to Avner. ("Who is that lad?" after the Goliath confrontation.)
The lad who will pick up the arrows giving the sign to David that Saul wants him dead.
Sat next to Jon Schechter my youngest sister's husband.
It was Leora's bat mitzvah.
Drank wine the first two glasses, then grape juice.
Next day lunch unremarkable.
(We figured out my mother's scale of movies-
A "I like to cry"
B "I can't sit so long"
C "Some people like that kind of movie"
D "You like this?!"
Slept a lot due to the wine.
Hung out after the holiday a bit.
Left the next morning.
Why do we eat Matza, because we left Egypt in a hurry and we didn't make a list and so we forgot the chametz and this is to remind us to make lists.

Death on the nile, confused by everyone as murder on the orient express, was the other unmentioned movie.

The jews are a people (3)

I guess it comes down to ethnicity/race. The Jews are a blood family.

According to Hillel Halkin we have a common father, but regarding mothers there is more variety involved.

Tonight is the seder.

I was just dissed on mondoweiss for taking credit for Spinoza despite the synagogue's excommunication. This is my answer:

Regarding Spinoza- I believe that the Jewish community that excommunicated Spinoza was under pressure to do so from the Christian community that controlled them. I no more blame the Jews for excommunicating Spinoza than I blame the Jews for persecuting Lenny Bruce or that other Jewish lad 1980 years ago. They were all part of the establishment listening to what Rome wanted.

Does God exist (2)

I ask this question often. Mostly it's a mantra. It's better than "I wish I was dead" and possibly better than "What do you think about the Cardinals?" But it is a space filler and not meaningful and these days I don't treat it seriously and dismiss it as filler.

At night in the dark, it is a real question. God, the thought, comes from mystery and maybe fear and the nighttime is the time of mystery and fear. And so at times of mystery, the God question is real.

Mystery is very real and those who don't sense it are tone deaf. To label it God and thus dismiss the mystery seems senseless. Mystery is to be savored, not answered, categorized, turned into 613 commands.

Does God exist? God is an attempt to answer the mystery and mystery definitely exists in my life at certain moments.

movie synopsis (M1) Northwest Passage

This movie is from around 1940 and stars Spencer Tracy, Robert Young and Walter Brennan. The year: 1756. The French and Indian wars. Robert Young a Harvard dropout aspiring artist gets in trouble back home and flees his New England town and Spencer Tracy kidnaps him/dupes him into joining his militia. The militia suffers mightily from privation. They climb a mountain carrying their canoes. They cross a river without canoes. They attack a town of Indians and Robert Young is injured. The hunger of the men is so great that they outvote their leader, Spencer Tracy and decide to split up in order to get some food. Most of them die in ambushes after they split up. They finally reach their objective- a fort, but it is empty when they get there. But when Spencer prays, the British show up with food and save the day.

The movie gets a C. Nothing special. But it's nice to see Spencer Tracy. Brennan is okay, same old character. Robert Young seems rather new at the game and any one of a dozen people could have succeeded as well at the role.

This time for sure (1)

Hello.
I've started blogs before, but this time for sure
[Bullwinkle the moose]
it will take off.
Joseph Acre is not my name.
Joe's a faker is the meaning of the nom de blog.
My previous blogs have been: cabby rabbi and Zion year 2 and Torah without it.
The titles represent part of my autobiography: 1. driven a cab. 2. know enough torah to be an ignoramus rabbi 3. made aliya three and a half years ago 4. off the derech, or left orthodoxy.
My plan is to use this blog as an answer to mondoweiss a blog I've been following for the last year or so.
I realize that a detective
[(Elvis Costello) (and Walt Disney Emil and the detectives)]
can figure out who I am by the blogs that I have referenced, but so it goes and we'll see if this is amenable to editing.
It is 36 or so hours until I'll be on my sister's kibbutz to celebrate the seder with my parents, sisters, brothers in law nieces and nephews and others.
It is almost 4 a.m. but since they just changed the clock two nights ago, it qualifies as 4 a.m. "new time".
Topics i hope to cover in this blog:
1. middle east. using mondoweiss as a diving board. i will comment on the posts and on the comments.
2. religion- judaism, god. create a new religion.
3. memories. i have a good memory (of bad, medium and good memories)
4. travails of writing. i'm in the midst of writing "liberty maze" a screenplay.
5. israel- living here in jerusalem
6. movies- i consider myself a minor buff. I have seen about 3800 movies on "My movies" list of imdb and i will talk about movies a bit.
7. sonhood. i am unmarried and my father is suffering parkinson's and i want to go back to the states.
8. dylan
9. reefer- i don't smoke nearly as much as i'd like to and if i get something to smoke soon, i will talk about that too.

some other things about me: i play literati a lot. (a free type of scrabble available on line.) i solve some chess positions as offered on chess tempo. i eat chicken, salmon in a can, bread, mayo, apples, red peppers and orange juice.
i have very few friends in israel. currently one of my friends from chicago has come into town. he is orthodox and as neurotic as me and single and he drives me kind of crazy.
i "plan" to return to america in July of 2012, about 27 months from now. two things will stop me: a woman who ties me to this country and earning enough money to live here half the year. i doubt that israel itself will keep me here. i fear that guilt towards my parents will keep me here, but that is a reason that i will look down upon.
when i quote something (99 times out of 100 from low culture, unless bible counts as high culture, then only 9 out of 10 from low culture) i will reference the quote, sometimes the word will inspire the thought rather than be a quote: example, detective was not a quote, and i referenced elvis costello (watching the detectives) and emil and the detectives, because the word brought those things to mind. whereas the title "this time for sure" is purely bullwinkle as he says, rustle up my sleeve watch me pull a rabbit from my hat. (rocky- again? bullwinkle- this time for sure. i'm falling as fast as i can.)
yes, i am self indulgent.
(Posts will be labeled by number and movie posts will be labeled separately.)