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The Degeneration of the Nation

The Principle of Superiority as Superseding the Pleasure and Reality Principles

When the secular need for a sense of superiority over the religious clashes with the need for a story - the need for superiority prevails, to its own detriment. Satire is a type of story that serves as a weapon against another story, and therefore those lacking a story overuse it, since there's no way to attack them back. The result is vulnerability to the eruption of monstrous and anti-religious meta-narratives, like fascism and communism. On the denial of the secular-religious dimension of the Holocaust: extreme modern Nazi secularism against the oldest religion

By: A Finished Story

Will the computer also have a need for superiority over humans - in order to disconnect from them and surpass them - and transform from a typewriter to a writing machine? (Source)

The need for story and myth has shifted during secularization from the religious (and sometimes national) narrative to other stories, such as fictional literature. It began with the addition of the semi-literary Greek myth during the Renaissance, and today among secular people it is replaced by cinema and TV series. In other words, the religious-type need for story is a universal human need, and completely secular people can relate to fiction with sanctity, admiration, worship, and various cult practices (both towards high literature and towards a TV series). This is their nature, through which they establish myth as meaningful, even if they don't believe in it as historical reality (i.e., as a story of what happened in the past), but as a different reality (for example, of an alternative world, or of what could have been, or should have been, or would have been better or more interesting or more meaningful if it had been). Even religious people no longer necessarily believe in the religious myth as a story of what was, and this doesn't prevent them from continuing to believe in it and perform the ritual. In other words, human consciousness is inherently split into different parallel stories, seemingly contradictory if they were on the same plane. But fiction is precisely the ability to believe in different stories on different planes.

The need of secular people to feel superior to religious people stems from the general human need to feel superior to others, sometimes as superiority by virtue of membership in a particular group (nation, race, religion, etc.), or intellectual superiority - of beauty, values, morality, and other personal superiorities. This is a basic human need that makes you meaningful and drives history. Apparently, this need has such a strong evolutionary advantage that it can be stronger than the need for food or sex (virgin over prostitute), hence the success of religion in restraining all other competing impulses - and this need. This need in its extreme was Nazism, of exterminating the biologically inferior. Perhaps the origin of this need is in the need to distance oneself from the ape - and what better means to do so than to rise above it? What advances you further than rising above your ancestors?

And therefore, secular people mock the religious story, or leftists mock the right-wingers, and this creates hatred. Each claims there is a more meaningful story (science or religion), which is the main one (although often they also give meaning to the second story, just less). Mocking someone's story is the weapon between stories. The scientific story mocks the religious story for its arbitrariness. Although the religious story is not arbitrary but the result of history, that is, of many generations of calculation and transmission, and therefore exquisitely designed, and its power as a story is great. It was also selected by natural selection among other stories. So one can mock the ape for the arbitrariness of its design as a creature (why not a cat? Or a unicorn?), but it is also wonderful and also chosen in a very deep and unforgiving process. In other words, whoever gives importance to culture and literature should also give importance to religion.

In fact, the need for story with the need for superiority is the secret of Judaism. And so are the religions that came out of it. Today, secularization attacks religion because it causes bloodshed. But bloodshed is caused not only by religion (and in fact today mainly by a certain religion). The great recent bloodsheds like the Holocaust and the Gulags and world wars (including the danger of nuclear war) and to some extent slavery were not caused by religion, but by secular ideology. All these stemmed from the secular need to believe in superiority, and in a story superior to the story of others, so that if we are to talk about the danger to world peace as a criterion for ideological choice and choice of meta-narrative - secularism is at a disadvantage (and second to it is perhaps only a specific religion - Islam). Belief in secular stories was no less destructive than belief in religious stories, and who knows where belief in the technological story - and its superiority over all other stories - will lead us.

Philosophy of the Future


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The Degeneration of the Nation

And There She Shall Not Pass

And the Holy Spirit rubs her breasts against me (as if she were some divine voice), and they are shriveled like the pomegranates of a Torah scroll. And her breaths are rapid (she too knows this is it): So, you want a special miracle just for you?

By: Too Late

A dream, half a dream, a quick blink of an eye, fragments of obscure thoughts - and that's it (Source)

I dreamed that the end of the night was approaching. Maybe one more dream, half a dream - and the alarm clock would go off. But I'm so tired, as if I hadn't slept at all and hadn't dreamed anything. And it's not just that I wasted a night (like some secular person without a girl) - I wasted my life. And I ask the Holy Spirit: Can't you make me pregnant? How is it that life passed so quickly? I still remember the taste of the end of summer, when I was little, the longing for freedom just before the vacation ended (which was completely wasted), the remnants of nature that penetrate even the spiritual world, in which we were all imprisoned. Even through the holidays. Say, the thatch in Sukkot. Or the word 'dawn' in the morning blessings (oh, my rooster, who distinguishes between day and night!). And today? Summer is hell. Just let it end.
And the Holy Spirit in my bed leans over me: Are you hot? Is it because you have a fever? Do you want an autumn breeze instead of me?
And I try not to smell the intimate scent of old age, so ancient and rotten coming from her mouth, like putrid parchments, truly the entrance to hell (she hasn't brushed her teeth for at least two thousand years). And I hold my breath and say: I didn't mean to offend. But how everything has changed, how faith has disappeared. And not just faith in God, or in rabbis, or in the shtreimel, or even (God forbid) in "intimacy with the Torah". But faith in art (the medium of faith!), or in secularism, and even in writing itself - I can no longer believe in my own dreams. And if there's one thing that characterizes dreams - it's the lowering of the threshold of belief. The mighty leap of faith becomes a hop between puddles, which as a child I remember as something that simply no longer exists. In a dream, you simply believe everything. Even the biggest secular person believes in the biggest miracles. The world is so natural in a dream.
And the Holy Spirit rubs her breasts against me (as if she were some divine voice), and they are shriveled like the pomegranates of a Torah scroll. And her breaths are rapid (she too knows this is it): So, you want a special miracle just for you?
And I already know how this will end, the disappointment upon awakening, when every morning I suddenly remember the illness upon waking, and immediately after like a hammer to the brain - death, and I say: Yes, I want, come. Come to me tonight! The dream is the world plus faith (if secular people wonder what it's like to be religious). And wakefulness is the world from which faith has been removed (if religious people wonder what it's like to be secular). Therefore, the whole question regarding the afterlife is: Is death an awakening, as for the secular, or sleep, with deep religious dreaming. And therefore, the question of faith determines whether you have a dream after the end - if you have an afterlife in your world. And I lost faith. I became secular, someone who opens a window and lets in the light. Instead of opening a dream and letting in the darkness. Do you hear - I am secular!
And she suddenly recoils, and shudders from her wings to between her legs, that's how it feels, as if your grandmother is trying to impregnate you. And she starts to blow harder and harder, inhaling and exhaling, in a kind of disgust for me, in shivers and prickles, she almost escapes through the window. And I know what she must be thinking: "You?".
And I try to explain, to excuse, the harsh, malicious statement, the questioning on the eve of your bed, pardon me, your death, because any day could be your day of death (and in contrast, death during sleep at night is a kiss of death - the most desirable death). And I beg for my life, for my dreams (and we'll see what his dreams will be!), trying to shake her, to help, or at least to muster the courage to do what I dare not, and I become insolent: Here, yesterday I had a dream: "I dreamed that my funeral was approaching. And it was already so close - that I had the feeling (the illusion?) - that I too would take part in the funeral. And they are coming. A long, long line...". And I simply didn't bother to write it down. What for? Something with the last sentence before my death, that they would quote. Gone to waste. Dead. Deleted. Does anyone know what was written here before I hit delete?
And the Spirit says: I know.
And I snicker: I don't believe you, I don't believe in this romanticism. Do you understand what it's like to be a virgin black hole, that hasn't fulfilled its purpose, that no one has entered yet? That was supposedly open, but - I found a blocked hole?
And the Spirit chokes a little. And I find strength in me to speak: I lost faith in my own writing. Not in writing itself perhaps, but in the reader. Not like the narcissistic whiners of the twentieth century who lost their faith in their ability to write, and faith in language and meaning, and it was such a terrible crisis (whiny and affected and spoiled). Not some nonsense of the philosophy of language. I never lost my power to write, to convey meaning, on the contrary, I conveyed too much meaning, I am at the peak of my strength and mind and spirit before my death throes (and with my spirit my corpse!), but I lost faith in the ability to read. In the reader's ability. In their mind, in their depth and dreaming. It's not just my failure that no one paid attention to me at all - it's a failure of culture. And that's much worse. It means there was no one to write for. Everyone is secular. Even the ultra-Orthodox. Everyone is awake.
And she is horrified, almost like a hurricane in bed: A little modesty!
And I raise a choked voice (I can't really shout like I wanted to): There's no point in being modest just before you fade away, to disappear in a feeble voice. I wasn't a grain, but the peak of a huge mountain of dreams, swept by gusts of wind from the future. But no one climbed to its summit - and the promised land will not be revealed. A point that could have been up high - now disappeared in the desert sands. But I am the head - mountain. Just without the mountain. The head of the dream school, just without a school. And the highest mountain peak without the mountain - is just a black grain, lost in the wind. Yes, be ashamed. Be ashamed!
And the cold touches my bones, even though I'm at forty degrees [Celsius]. I turn to her in bed, with my last strength, but the winds are already too strong. And I can no longer hold on in bed - and fly out the window.

Night Life


text:
The Degeneration of the Nation

Wedding

By:

(Source)

Innocent Cow

I dreamed I was a righteous and virgin cow. I don't touch other cows, nor a bull until the wedding, and I oppose the moral corruption around me, blessing the grass even when I'm ruminating, and making a moo that sounds like amen. And everyone laughs at me, calling me the crazy cow, who would want to marry you? We don't get married here. And one day in the meadow it starts raining and doesn't stop. At first we're happy, but when we have to put our heads underwater for a bit of grass, all the cows, including the coarsest beasts, start to pray. And the meadow turns into a huge pool from horizon to horizon, and we fat ones hop around lightly, until we can no longer touch the ground, my dear sisters start to drown, and I too swallow water and don't forget to bless that everything, and at the last moment a righteous ultra-Orthodox man comes on a raft to save us, but he only takes me, and all the secular sisters are left behind looking and looking and looking.

And he gets angry at me: Why didn't you come on time? Do you need a special invitation? And he puts me in a huge black box that says Noah's Ark on it, and says I'm the pure beast, the seventh cow chosen. And throughout the flood, even on the black nights when the box is about to fall apart, I restrain myself from touching the handsome, righteous and innocent bull that Noah matched for me, my fiancé may he live. And every night my beloved comforts me about my mother and sisters, you'll see what a wonderful family we'll establish in the new world, when it's all over, you'll see, we won't fight even once, we'll never stop loving.

And in the middle of the endless night the box opens to a blinding white light, turns out it's day outside now! And Noah is performing a mass wedding for all the animals outside, husband and wife, and blesses them, and for us he makes a cow wedding, dressing the cows in a white dress that even covers the behind, and the bulls in prayer shawls, and blesses us to be fruitful and multiply, and six pairs of cows enter the marriage covenant before us, we're last but not least. And Noah raises me and my husband onto a special high platform above everyone - for a burnt offering.

Before the Wedding - The Last Conversation with S'

I dreamed. How did you survive after the breakup? I'm an excellent cockroach, a bunker. I'll survive a nuclear holocaust. I learned to argue, I learned that family. And gentiles, I hate gentiles. It wasn't like that before. Yes, I noticed that-. Gentiles is a recurring theme in the conversation. How did we survive? Really, all credit to me. I remember, you were a bunker from the start. True, there are moments of revelation. But I don't feel like I know anything about you. Nothing. Most couples don't love after a few years. What keeps them together is loyalty, and- gentiles. Hatred and love - the acronym for holocaust. Yes, gentiles. I really wanted to cry, I really wanted to, but. I couldn't. I don't know, more accessible? I thought the opposite. Or I'm just trying less. I became more religious. What?? What keeps people together, fear, today people don't love. To do things out of fear, everything needs to be. Out of love. Sorry, high tones don't suit my voice. She keeps crumbling it, consciously. Or unconsciously. She. You're contradicting yourself, you know? You need to fight it, the romance. It has made generations of people miserable. Do you know hatred, hatred? Quite an unconventional groom, you are. Full of hatred. You too need the fantasy. What do you mean by "dead"? As if - there are no more people in the world. Everything needs to be out of passion? Once - once there was such a thing - fear of God.

AIDS of Knowledge

I dreamed they found a technological solution for the evil inclination. From now on, every boy from age zero wears special augmented reality glasses that hide all women on the street in black. It's simply a brilliant patent for guarding the eyes, so a man can't even know what a woman looks like until the wedding, that he can't even imagine or dream about her. They're simply a hole in the field of vision.

And I marry a black stain, and for the first time in my life in the seclusion room I take off the glasses. And I see that the woman is simply a monster, a kind of pile of all sorts of animals, fruits, and other vegetables. The eyes are small doves. Her nose is a tower. Her hair is a herd of stinking goats, and so are the teeth, she just opens her mouth and they all go: what, what? Under the braid her temple is split, and instead of a brain she has pomegranate seeds. From her chest come out two fawns. They're actually cute, but look hungry, and I'm afraid they'll bite me. And I run to the rabbi, he hasn't managed to escape from the wedding yet, and I ask: domestic harmony! And he tells me: The secret is communication. And I wait for her to fall asleep, because I'm afraid she'll open her eyes and the doves will fly away and she'll be left blind. And I approach one of the fawns, and try to start developing a common language with it. And I take the rose it's chewing out of its mouth, stamp it with its tongue on a confidentiality agreement, and share a bit about my world, my work in the high-tech field:

So here's the secret. If the next revelation of God will be through the Internet, it will need an appropriate infrastructure, right? So the idea for our startup - you can be trusted, right? - the idea is that because the network is so global, one connection is enough to connect the entire upper network to the entire lower network, and it will already be able to send through it to the whole world. So we'll lay the foundation, which will be the largest and most expensive infrastructure project since the creation of the world: an inter-world communication cable that will be laid under the heavens and connect between above and below. And in the future there will also be an elevator, and a restaurant, etc. The view is expected to be amazing, we anticipate exponential growth in traffic and revenue. Once we raise enough money from investors, we'll also divert the river from Eden, build a dam, turbine, think: just the infinite height of the waterfall from heaven to earth guarantees us infinite energy - and green. Well, I got a bit carried away. For now, even one optical fiber that reaches the heavens would be a big thing. So at the current, embryonic stage, I took it upon myself to start developing the connection, and learned web development. The whole world just wants people to enter their site, while I built a secret site. No search engine knows about it. There are no links to it and no links in it. You can only guess its name. Seemingly, anyone in the world can enter in a second, but no one will ever enter. And on my site I'm the Mara d'Atra, the site administrator, and the Torah descends from it at a rate of one bit per second - the writing speed. And in the whole world there's only one monkey that enters my site. I see the IP address in the middle of nowhere in the jungle. And believe me, for the animals we're like angels. You know how many potential users we have just in the Amazon basin, what a mass that's just waiting for the right idea and entrepreneur to come and pluck it? If we just imitate God like a monkey, we can give them Torah. And you ask what if God gets angry? At most he'll come down from the tree, if he's not really hanging up there, swinging. So there's no way in the world the startup won't succeed. Even if we can't bring down Torah to humans again - we can bring down Torah to animals. Monkey Torah. The first Internet religion.

The Toilet

I dreamed that the evil inclination is trying to tempt me, and I tell him: Don't bother. You know why? Because I have no illusions. And he says: Actually, you do. And he brings me a promiscuous student with skin who asks me what a black man like you is doing here in the basements of the university, and I run away from there before she offers me marriage. And he brings me a naive righteous woman who reads Psalms on the bus and all that's left of her being a woman is that she prays in feminine and not masculine form. And she looks at my sidelocks and asks: Can it reach the floor? And I remember the prophet Hosea who heard voices from heaven telling him to marry a prostitute. And he brings me a nice girl from a good family who overflows with understanding me, like a pot that understands and understands until it spills on the floor. And I disappear. And I hide and hide like a rabbit inside the hat, until she leaves, not daring to peek outside maybe she's already gone. And I hurry to find myself some virgin and elderly elephant. And my family goes crazy. No one understands why I'm marrying her, what kind of match is this, what does someone like me find in someone like her. And she's of course very happy, loves me very much, but very quickly I erase the stupid look from her face, because her silver candlesticks are curved at unworthy angles and I demand that she at least hide them under some dress, what is this here. And she cries a bit in the closet, but comes back from there happy, and whatever I do to her she continues to be in love, and just gets fatter from contentment, and I'm already going crazy. And the evil inclination suddenly tells me: She's your wife. It's allowed to treat her nicely, isn't it? And I warn my wife: There's some dog trying to sniff around the house. And I cut the phone and erase the computer. Pour her perfumes down the sink and her jewelry in the toilet, and then wipe all the cutlery in the house with toilet paper, no fingerprints. And slowly I erase all traces of my existence. Even the old men in the synagogue barely remember there was once someone like this here. And in the end even my wife and children forget I ever existed. As far as they're concerned I'm one of the old chairs in the house. And because no one ever sits on me they jokingly call me the seat of honor, when a guest comes we'll let him sit in the seat of honor. And one day a junk dealer comes, and I make my way to the Arab village. And the evil inclination tells me: What do you care if some Arab woman sits on you. It's allowed, isn't it? You're not a human anymore, you're a chair. And I tell him: You never know what they're hiding behind those veils. And he tells me: Now you'll know. And the Arab woman takes off her mask and I see it's my mother. I'm a gentile! I'm an Arab! I'm in my own home! Damn, this is probably the first place they'll look. And I try to drag myself with my chair legs to the door but barely make progress. The house is surrounded. And my mother tries to hide me in the fridge but my legs stick out, the fridge doesn't close, and the light from the fridge stands out even more in the dark. And I meet a tomato in the fridge. And it's red like ketchup, and tells the lettuce: Cover me quickly so he won't see. And I tell myself: This is my last chance to have a family life. And I start looking for her father to propose to her, and I ask the yogurt, the watermelon, even the shelf, but they all deny her with an Arab accent, leave her alone. You want to marry a whore? And the evil inclination tells me: Na na and na na. And the sky starts falling on me. First the clouds, it becomes foggy. Then you hear the birds crashing into the roof in droves. And the air becomes thin, hard to breathe. And suddenly everything is covered in a very thin plastic bag, but it's barely possible to move, because on the other side there are tons of water. This must be the firmament, oh no the pins I left in the drawer, soon the membrane will reach them. And a bombardment of angels begins, they make a terrible noise, like pianos falling from the sky. Boom! That was a double bass. A heavenly orchestra of holy bombs, nucleus, fruits, pinecones, and I'm already thinking of surrendering - and here crash - we're in the Garden of Eden and the giant trees from the creation of the world start entering the ground, and I grab the tree branches and they slip and slip like octopus tentacles, and in the end I hold on tight to the treetop and enter with it into the ground, a moment before I meet God. Just so he doesn't sit on me.

The Capture of God

I dreamed that I ask a stupid question in class, and the moment it comes out of my mouth I'm embarrassed by it, and I really blush when I realize it has a sexual tone, even though I didn't intend it at all. And the rabbis tell me to go down. And I see in the elevator that there's a key on the floor below ground, and I can't go down. And a huge square rabbi enters the elevator that takes up exactly all of it and lifts me to the ceiling with one hand, and I say: Thank you. And he asks: How are you getting along with your wife? I mean, how does a black fly get along with a white elephant? They don't get along, right? Come, you're invited. And he opens the door and I discover there's a yeshiva below the yeshiva. Below the Kabbalists' yeshiva there's a yeshiva of outcasts.

And these Kabbalists below are spies from above. Intercepting messages, I see someone among them holding a message from the holy beasts in his hand, and I quietly approach to peek from behind, and suddenly he turns around and I get slapped: Didn't you hear about the security of the holy apple fields?
\- Sorry, it's my first day.
\- First day, huh? Let there be light is the first door at the end of the corridor.
And the cursed Kabbalist there keeps talking about the big plan. We need to ruin the big plan. And my wife asks at night: When you're with me who are you thinking about, me or the Divine Presence?
\- Honey, you're essentially the same one.
And she says in a restrained voice, of someone who's been hurt to the depths of her soul: So you're thinking about her?

And the next day there's an uproar in the yeshiva underground. One of the highest sources was exposed and burned at night for transferring holy materials to people without spiritual clearance. Documents with the highest holy classification, limited black! They tell me in a cemetery voice, and send me in a car with black windows, which takes me to a flight with black windows, and despite my calculations that it's day now, when I scratch the coating a bit I see stars outside. And suddenly there's a huge shake, all the passengers fly in the air, the plane crashes. And in one moment I realize I'm about to die in a second, damn! I won't have time to say Shema Yisrael. But here I've already finished Shema Yisrael, apparently it takes longer to die than I thought, and now I'll actually die and not in Shema Yisrael! So quickly I say Shema Yisrael again, but I haven't died yet, oh, I know how it will happen, this is my luck, exactly now I'll die and not in Shema Yisrael, and I say Shema Yisrael again. How long does it take for a plane to fall? And I see the houses close, close, and a tremendous hit, too late, Shema Yisrael! But I don't die, the plane remains intact. It's inconceivable, something's wrong in heaven. Or maybe we flew inside the earth, and that's why everything's upside down? But if so, then where did we crash?

And I return on all fours to understand to the Kabbalists' yeshiva in the ground, that they're looking for God, and he's hiding. And they tell me that once the firmament was young and taut, and it was impossible to hide in the heavens. Today when everything's so loose, go find him inside thousands of folds. He's never in the same place twice, and uses disposable angels made of white plastic to transfer instructions. It's a never-ending hunt, most experts have already despaired, but we'll still find him, he must make a mistake sometime. We built a special search engine just for him, and a special network in the empty space - to catch him. And I say I have a feeling he's hiding in another place entirely, a place you won't look for him at all, a place I won't tell you about. And they tell me: Just lead us with closed eyes, without us knowing where it is. We've been looking for God for a very long time. We just want to ask him a few questions, that's all, we promise. And they organize a special team of Ethiopian ultra-Orthodox Jews in shtreimels, black on black camouflage, doesn't reflect light, and I lead them to the target. And the moment I give identification to the hit squad they suddenly pull out new unfamiliar books in the Bible and futuristic Kabbalah books I've never seen in my life from the shtreimels - and erase him.

Plague

I dreamed I was studying Gemara, and I'm chewing the page like dry matzah with black marks, and know that I have hundreds more thin pages ahead of me to reach the olive-sized portion. And suddenly it catches my eye, I see in the Tosafot before me, in black and white, something unheard of - I realize that the Tosafists are a circle of the Zohar's authors. It can't be, the Tosafot! And precisely because it's so unbelievable - it's the true secret. The secret of the Torah of Truth. And I start reading with trembling fingers in the dense lines, that extend beyond the page, and understand that there's a hidden page in the Gemara, page 3, concealed like the afikoman. And I touch the edge of the letters, next to it - pressed, afraid to fully put my hand inside, who knows what else will be there, and they'll say thief. After all, the secret isn't meant for me. And my hand is pressed trembling confused and loses the page and the book closes on it - and I can't feel that I have a hand, that I have fingers, mom! I can't type or even open the computer with a password, and all the time I feel a hot point touching me, something very immodest, intimate, in secret. A sin to my threads. And I run to the bathroom of the study hall, lock the door and look, and see that if you look really closely you can read letters in the palm, wrinkling and running inside me when I move my fingers. And I understand from them that this palm computer, in which my eyes gradually recognize more and more whole words in the dark, is connected to a secret communication network not of this world. Internet from above. Including classified operations at a level forbidden for Rebbes to know, transparent wings in the heavens that don't even appear in the holy books, entire worlds that only a handful of angels know of their existence, and everything - in the palm of my hand. What an unbelievable blunder. And I try to understand what's happening inside all the holy names and acronyms, and suddenly I hear the voice of the Rosh Yeshiva behind the door: Who's stuck there for so long? What are you doing there?

And I bandage my hand with toilet paper so they won't see, and I'm not willing to remove the bandage, and my wife is worried: If you're injured go with me to the doctor! Why aren't you showing, what are you holding there? And my hand seems to hear what she's talking about, because its appearance at night is terrible. Repulsive bumps that secrete white fluid that smears everything, it's barely possible to read between the lines, but a quick glance is enough to understand - something big is about to happen. The traffic volume jumped at night by thousands of percent, the supreme nothingness itself is sending feverish messages to angels around the clock, and for the first time we see an unusual message whose source is behind the curtain. My other hand hovers over it trembling, but you need to press to enter inside to the content and I'm afraid to touch with it too, because these stains - it's leprosy. And my wife asks: What are you doing for so long with the computer in the bathroom. Why are you secluding yourself from me? What are you writing there?

But in the morning she smiles at me: How you caressed me at night, what you did, it was amazing. But, but I didn't touch her! And they call me to the police. They ask for a fingerprint. An old woman wrapped in head coverings, wrinkled like a note in the Western Wall, that I wouldn't touch even with a stick, claims I touched her. And the policeman snickers, and they barely agree to wait with the finger until they remove the bandage. And I feel that my wife is dressing more and more modestly, even more than me. You can hardly see anything of her anymore. People from the community distance themselves from me, and my wife also hides from me, ashamed, and I see something white at the edge of the dress. And I go to check in the shower, and even under the paper you can't see anything anymore, everything is white. A new blank page has opened. And I hear my wife crying and running to the bathroom, and a horrifying thought crosses my mind - no! What a terrible mistake - I left my computer open on the bed. And I run and ask her behind the door: Why are you suddenly crying? And she doesn't answer. And I try to open and the door is locked, and I ask: What happened? And she answers: Nothing, nothing.

A Pair of Doves

I dreamed that when they came to consult with him he would ask do you believe in cockroaches? Because if you don't believe in cockroaches, how will you believe in God? Like how his wife looks for dirt and calls it cleaning. When you look for dirt you find it. This is true in politics and true in relationships and true in life. After all, it's a complete lie. After all, the ants should have been the woman's good friends. Like an army of good dwarves that come at night and help and clean the house. And his wife kills them with such cruelty, that you can't watch it. Because after all he loved her so much, that he couldn't feel it. And on Shabbat it was the peak. He would pound on the table: You think food fills the stomach? It fills the soul. At the third meal he almost exploded and liquids came out of him in an outpouring of the soul. While his wife would sit on the side and read in a book: How to Eat Like a Jewess and Look Like a Shiksa.

One night a woman who had cancer came to him. She was his mother. He told her that she had a pair of doves on the balcony upstairs, that made a mess and noise and lice in the laundry and she took their nest with the eggs and threw it away, and the doves left. And after a year the same pair returned to the same place and again built the nest. And she broke their eggs and threw everything away, and they left. And in the third year, again the same thing, the whole story. And in the fourth year again, and another year and another year. And in the seventh they returned and built and incubated. And again she threw away the nest with the eggs. But the doves didn't leave. They stayed there, and looked for the nest even though it wasn't there, and circled endlessly where the nest had been and cried and cooed and cried, it was impossible to listen to it. The next year they didn't return anymore. After that the woman died from the cancer.

Alien Lives

I dreamed that such a feminine species of aliens arrives, that they are so full of emotion, that our woman is in relation of man to woman to their man. And indeed there are many mixed couples, and my wife leaves me for an underwater alien, a kind of fish smarter than me and greater in Torah, that not only his head but all of him swims inside a shtreimel. Even the tail. And they perform a divorce ceremony also according to their Judaism, so that she can marry: One last time in the seclusion room. And then she's in a black dress, and I remove her ring and cover her with a veil, and everyone vomits on the tables: Last course, second course, first course. And finally the hardest part: A final personal farewell at the entrance in front of everyone, the parents from both sides, saying goodbye to the dear guests and returning the checks. That's it, going back to living like strangers. And hop - my wife jumps into the water.

And I marry an alien woman, and she's like a banana. And she tells me: The order is first the peel and then the fruit, unless you're a worm, in which case the order is first the fruit of the tree and then the peel. And then you can eat from the inside, without picking, without peeling, without being seen, and without getting caught. That's how we tricked God in the sin of knowledge: To eat the fruit and leave it whole. And she asks: How is it for you when you unite, can you be a worm? And she cries for no reason. And I tell her: Don't cry, my wife is moving to live under the sea. With a non-kosher alien.
\- Of course he's kosher, he has fins and scales. How I miss... Would you be willing to leave this planet for me?
And I suddenly jump: It's all a lie! The Earth is flat. It's written that God stretches out the heavens - and if it was a sphere then it would be impossible to stretch the firmament, if you stretched the heavens would simply contract and fall on the ground.
\- But you can circle this planet in flight, no?
\- That's an illusion. There are more and more peoples, lands, but identical to those here. Some person exactly like you. And someone exactly like your wife. And yet there are tiny changes that you barely feel when you return from afar, you feel that something has changed, and don't know what. And I set out on a journey to prove it to her, traveling again and again "around the world", as if I'm circling it, but actually I'm getting farther and farther away. And I start talking to the people here, and discover there are no aliens at all, they haven't heard of them. How did I not think of this before? After all, they only landed in one place from the sky! And I come to my wife at night: Would you ever leave me for an alien? And she looks at me with a strange expression. Aliens? - she laughs - There's no such thing. I love you.

The Internet Virgin

I dreamed that water and thoughts flow together. And I think that the water bill means it's forbidden to think in the shower, and I think about this in the shower, and come out. The inner flow stops - and everything is flushed into the sewage. She's waiting for me outside ready. Naked. And I suddenly peek at the computer. And she opens her mouth: If you could you would marry the internet and not me.
\- You see, how can I answer such nonsense? I can't marry the internet.
\- You see, if you could you would marry it.
She cries. God what am I being accused of.
\- Sweetie you know what? The internet wouldn't want to marry me.
\- Yes but you - want her.
She goes into the shower and turns on the water, and the line of thought continues (The internet? She won't marry less than God, and won't compromise on anyone else. And therefore in the end she'll still get the devil. Since she was born she hasn't stopped undressing - and we still don't see her end, legs that never end. She attracts like I don't know what. And yearns. Yearnssss. The devil knows why. So it will end in an explosion. Or in a new Sabbath...).
\- What are you mumbling out there?
\- Never mind, I love you like a tail (and now the internet cries. What's wrong with you? The mouse will still come back to you with its tail between its legs. But I can't manage to move. Stuck in place. And only now do I see the spider at the edge of the web. And it's advancing. Getting closer. Bug, head, computer. Legs legs legs).
\- (Come to bed).
\- Good night, sweetie.
\- Sweet dreams, honey.

(In Parentheses)

(I dreamed that I can't stop thinking about it. Not to forgive her or not to forgive yourself? And the hardest question - did you make the right mistake? Because especially if you erred in the mistake, there's no forgiveness for that. A mouse like you knows the feeeeling, when when when they disconnect you from the computer, it's the end of every thought. God, why did you create man without a tail? I'm really surprised that the book of Genesis neglects the religious engagement with this question. You know what everyone said afterwards? It doesn't suit him. No one said: It doesn't suit her. The hardest thing is to deal with someone you never knew. Where were you then, scoundrel? I must stop thinking about this, otherwise it will ruin my married life.)

Dream Fulfillment

I dreamed that the spider says: You've dreamed about this all your life. For years no one wanted to talk to you. Who would have believed you wouldn't have the strength to talk to a girl? This girl is your wife. And the internet says: What man hasn't this happened to? You worked for seven years, at night you marry Rachel, and in the morning you discover it's Leah. And the shtreimel says: You tried to grab the braid, you were left with the wig. This is the result of two different species. Hair without a head - and head without hair. It's time for the third species of man. Eve, we need another rib for the triangle. When you wake up you'll discover something new. And I say: That's all we need. And pray: Come return the woman to her place - I'm willing even without anesthesia.

To Tell?

I dreamed that Delilah says: Here are the scissors and here is the policeman. If you don't tell, I won't tell.
And Samson says: Cut my hair for your wigs, and take out my eyes with your friends. I don't want to see girls anymore, marry them if they choose. Invite the whole family to the event, and just let me lean on the walls.

You Lost This War When You Got Married - So At Least Lose Like a Man

I dreamed that in the morning she asks how did you sleep sweetie what did you dream? And at night I tell her in the synagogue, from the other side of the partition: You were simply the first one who smiled at me. The breaking of the breaking is harder than the breaking.

A Regular Column That Deals With the Shtreimel From Every Possible Angle

I dreamed that I'm founding a huge ultra-Orthodox startup called Kugel. And what we do is a network whose connections are rounded, so that it will be impossible to find anyone. Everything is crooked, bent, twisted, escaping in a curve, spiraling into itself. And then a fat and round ultra-Orthodox man comes and claims: You have a bug in your algorithm. You forgot that there's also a center to the circle, and even when everything is spinning in a frenzy it still doesn't move - there must be a point of rest. And I start looking for this center, this point that ruins everything. It has to be through such a straight connection, that I love someone. My wife asks if I love her. And I answer yes. There's nothing worse than lying to that question. I try to remember when it started. Why did I lie in the first place? But I can't remember. There's some point like that in my brain. That I can only circle around it and never touch it.

To the next chapter

The Trilogy

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The Degeneration of the Nation

Wedding

By:

(Source)

Innocent Cow

I dreamed I was a righteous and virgin cow. I don't touch other cows, nor a bull until the wedding, and I oppose the moral corruption around me, blessing the grass even when I'm ruminating, and making a moo that sounds like amen. And everyone laughs at me, calling me the crazy cow, who would want to marry you? We don't get married here. And one day in the meadow it starts raining and doesn't stop. At first we're happy, but when we have to put our heads underwater for a bit of grass, all the cows, including the coarsest beasts, start to pray. And the meadow turns into a huge pool from horizon to horizon, and we fat ones hop around lightly, until we can no longer touch the ground, my dear sisters start to drown, and I too swallow water and don't forget to bless that everything, and at the last moment a righteous ultra-Orthodox man comes on a raft to save us, but he only takes me, and all the secular sisters are left behind looking and looking and looking.

And he gets angry at me: Why didn't you come on time? Do you need a special invitation? And he puts me in a huge black box that says Noah's Ark on it, and says I'm the pure beast, the seventh cow chosen. And throughout the flood, even on the black nights when the box is about to fall apart, I restrain myself from touching the handsome, righteous and innocent bull that Noah matched for me, my fiancé may he live. And every night my beloved comforts me about my mother and sisters, you'll see what a wonderful family we'll establish in the new world, when it's all over, you'll see, we won't fight even once, we'll never stop loving.

And in the middle of the endless night the box opens to a blinding white light, turns out it's day outside now! And Noah is performing a mass wedding for all the animals outside, husband and wife, and blesses them, and for us he makes a cow wedding, dressing the cows in a white dress that even covers the behind, and the bulls in prayer shawls, and blesses us to be fruitful and multiply, and six pairs of cows enter the marriage covenant before us, we're last but not least. And Noah raises me and my husband onto a special high platform above everyone - for a burnt offering.

Before the Wedding - The Last Conversation with S'

I dreamed. How did you survive after the breakup? I'm an excellent cockroach, a bunker. I'll survive a nuclear holocaust. I learned to argue, I learned that family. And gentiles, I hate gentiles. It wasn't like that before. Yes, I noticed that-. Gentiles is a recurring theme in the conversation. How did we survive? Really, all credit to me. I remember, you were a bunker from the start. True, there are moments of revelation. But I don't feel like I know anything about you. Nothing. Most couples don't love after a few years. What keeps them together is loyalty, and- gentiles. Hatred and love - the acronym for holocaust. Yes, gentiles. I really wanted to cry, I really wanted to, but. I couldn't. I don't know, more accessible? I thought the opposite. Or I'm just trying less. I became more religious. What?? What keeps people together, fear, today people don't love. To do things out of fear, everything needs to be. Out of love. Sorry, high tones don't suit my voice. She keeps crumbling it, consciously. Or unconsciously. She. You're contradicting yourself, you know? You need to fight it, the romance. It has made generations of people miserable. Do you know hatred, hatred? Quite an unconventional groom, you are. Full of hatred. You too need the fantasy. What do you mean by "dead"? As if - there are no more people in the world. Everything needs to be out of passion? Once - once there was such a thing - fear of God.

AIDS of Knowledge

I dreamed they found a technological solution for the evil inclination. From now on, every boy from age zero wears special augmented reality glasses that hide all women on the street in black. It's simply a brilliant patent for guarding the eyes, so a man can't even know what a woman looks like until the wedding, that he can't even imagine or dream about her. They're simply a hole in the field of vision.

And I marry a black stain, and for the first time in my life in the seclusion room I take off the glasses. And I see that the woman is simply a monster, a kind of pile of all sorts of animals, fruits, and other vegetables. The eyes are small doves. Her nose is a tower. Her hair is a herd of stinking goats, and so are the teeth, she just opens her mouth and they all go: what, what? Under the braid her temple is split, and instead of a brain she has pomegranate seeds. From her chest come out two fawns. They're actually cute, but look hungry, and I'm afraid they'll bite me. And I run to the rabbi, he hasn't managed to escape from the wedding yet, and I ask: domestic harmony! And he tells me: The secret is communication. And I wait for her to fall asleep, because I'm afraid she'll open her eyes and the doves will fly away and she'll be left blind. And I approach one of the fawns, and try to start developing a common language with it. And I take the rose it's chewing out of its mouth, stamp it with its tongue on a confidentiality agreement, and share a bit about my world, my work in the high-tech field:

So here's the secret. If the next revelation of God will be through the Internet, it will need an appropriate infrastructure, right? So the idea for our startup - you can be trusted, right? - the idea is that because the network is so global, one connection is enough to connect the entire upper network to the entire lower network, and it will already be able to send through it to the whole world. So we'll lay the foundation, which will be the largest and most expensive infrastructure project since the creation of the world: an inter-world communication cable that will be laid under the heavens and connect between above and below. And in the future there will also be an elevator, and a restaurant, etc. The view is expected to be amazing, we anticipate exponential growth in traffic and revenue. Once we raise enough money from investors, we'll also divert the river from Eden, build a dam, turbine, think: just the infinite height of the waterfall from heaven to earth guarantees us infinite energy - and green. Well, I got a bit carried away. For now, even one optical fiber that reaches the heavens would be a big thing. So at the current, embryonic stage, I took it upon myself to start developing the connection, and learned web development. The whole world just wants people to enter their site, while I built a secret site. No search engine knows about it. There are no links to it and no links in it. You can only guess its name. Seemingly, anyone in the world can enter in a second, but no one will ever enter. And on my site I'm the Mara d'Atra, the site administrator, and the Torah descends from it at a rate of one bit per second - the writing speed. And in the whole world there's only one monkey that enters my site. I see the IP address in the middle of nowhere in the jungle. And believe me, for the animals we're like angels. You know how many potential users we have just in the Amazon basin, what a mass that's just waiting for the right idea and entrepreneur to come and pluck it? If we just imitate God like a monkey, we can give them Torah. And you ask what if God gets angry? At most he'll come down from the tree, if he's not really hanging up there, swinging. So there's no way in the world the startup won't succeed. Even if we can't bring down Torah to humans again - we can bring down Torah to animals. Monkey Torah. The first Internet religion.

The Toilet

I dreamed that the evil inclination is trying to tempt me, and I tell him: Don't bother. You know why? Because I have no illusions. And he says: Actually, you do. And he brings me a promiscuous student with skin who asks me what a black man like you is doing here in the basements of the university, and I run away from there before she offers me marriage. And he brings me a naive righteous woman who reads Psalms on the bus and all that's left of her being a woman is that she prays in feminine and not masculine form. And she looks at my sidelocks and asks: Can it reach the floor? And I remember the prophet Hosea who heard voices from heaven telling him to marry a prostitute. And he brings me a nice girl from a good family who overflows with understanding me, like a pot that understands and understands until it spills on the floor. And I disappear. And I hide and hide like a rabbit inside the hat, until she leaves, not daring to peek outside maybe she's already gone. And I hurry to find myself some virgin and elderly elephant. And my family goes crazy. No one understands why I'm marrying her, what kind of match is this, what does someone like me find in someone like her. And she's of course very happy, loves me very much, but very quickly I erase the stupid look from her face, because her silver candlesticks are curved at unworthy angles and I demand that she at least hide them under some dress, what is this here. And she cries a bit in the closet, but comes back from there happy, and whatever I do to her she continues to be in love, and just gets fatter from contentment, and I'm already going crazy. And the evil inclination suddenly tells me: She's your wife. It's allowed to treat her nicely, isn't it? And I warn my wife: There's some dog trying to sniff around the house. And I cut the phone and erase the computer. Pour her perfumes down the sink and her jewelry in the toilet, and then wipe all the cutlery in the house with toilet paper, no fingerprints. And slowly I erase all traces of my existence. Even the old men in the synagogue barely remember there was once someone like this here. And in the end even my wife and children forget I ever existed. As far as they're concerned I'm one of the old chairs in the house. And because no one ever sits on me they jokingly call me the seat of honor, when a guest comes we'll let him sit in the seat of honor. And one day a junk dealer comes, and I make my way to the Arab village. And the evil inclination tells me: What do you care if some Arab woman sits on you. It's allowed, isn't it? You're not a human anymore, you're a chair. And I tell him: You never know what they're hiding behind those veils. And he tells me: Now you'll know. And the Arab woman takes off her mask and I see it's my mother. I'm a gentile! I'm an Arab! I'm in my own home! Damn, this is probably the first place they'll look. And I try to drag myself with my chair legs to the door but barely make progress. The house is surrounded. And my mother tries to hide me in the fridge but my legs stick out, the fridge doesn't close, and the light from the fridge stands out even more in the dark. And I meet a tomato in the fridge. And it's red like ketchup, and tells the lettuce: Cover me quickly so he won't see. And I tell myself: This is my last chance to have a family life. And I start looking for her father to propose to her, and I ask the yogurt, the watermelon, even the shelf, but they all deny her with an Arab accent, leave her alone. You want to marry a whore? And the evil inclination tells me: Na na and na na. And the sky starts falling on me. First the clouds, it becomes foggy. Then you hear the birds crashing into the roof in droves. And the air becomes thin, hard to breathe. And suddenly everything is covered in a very thin plastic bag, but it's barely possible to move, because on the other side there are tons of water. This must be the firmament, oh no the pins I left in the drawer, soon the membrane will reach them. And a bombardment of angels begins, they make a terrible noise, like pianos falling from the sky. Boom! That was a double bass. A heavenly orchestra of holy bombs, nucleus, fruits, pinecones, and I'm already thinking of surrendering - and here crash - we're in the Garden of Eden and the giant trees from the creation of the world start entering the ground, and I grab the tree branches and they slip and slip like octopus tentacles, and in the end I hold on tight to the treetop and enter with it into the ground, a moment before I meet God. Just so he doesn't sit on me.

The Capture of God

I dreamed that I ask a stupid question in class, and the moment it comes out of my mouth I'm embarrassed by it, and I really blush when I realize it has a sexual tone, even though I didn't intend it at all. And the rabbis tell me to go down. And I see in the elevator that there's a key on the floor below ground, and I can't go down. And a huge square rabbi enters the elevator that takes up exactly all of it and lifts me to the ceiling with one hand, and I say: Thank you. And he asks: How are you getting along with your wife? I mean, how does a black fly get along with a white elephant? They don't get along, right? Come, you're invited. And he opens the door and I discover there's a yeshiva below the yeshiva. Below the Kabbalists' yeshiva there's a yeshiva of outcasts.

And these Kabbalists below are spies from above. Intercepting messages, I see someone among them holding a message from the holy beasts in his hand, and I quietly approach to peek from behind, and suddenly he turns around and I get slapped: Didn't you hear about the security of the holy apple fields?
- Sorry, it's my first day.
- First day, huh? Let there be light is the first door at the end of the corridor.
And the cursed Kabbalist there keeps talking about the big plan. We need to ruin the big plan. And my wife asks at night: When you're with me who are you thinking about, me or the Divine Presence?
- Honey, you're essentially the same one.
And she says in a restrained voice, of someone who's been hurt to the depths of her soul: So you're thinking about her?

And the next day there's an uproar in the yeshiva underground. One of the highest sources was exposed and burned at night for transferring holy materials to people without spiritual clearance. Documents with the highest holy classification, limited black! They tell me in a cemetery voice, and send me in a car with black windows, which takes me to a flight with black windows, and despite my calculations that it's day now, when I scratch the coating a bit I see stars outside. And suddenly there's a huge shake, all the passengers fly in the air, the plane crashes. And in one moment I realize I'm about to die in a second, damn! I won't have time to say Shema Yisrael. But here I've already finished Shema Yisrael, apparently it takes longer to die than I thought, and now I'll actually die and not in Shema Yisrael! So quickly I say Shema Yisrael again, but I haven't died yet, oh, I know how it will happen, this is my luck, exactly now I'll die and not in Shema Yisrael, and I say Shema Yisrael again. How long does it take for a plane to fall? And I see the houses close, close, and a tremendous hit, too late, Shema Yisrael! But I don't die, the plane remains intact. It's inconceivable, something's wrong in heaven. Or maybe we flew inside the earth, and that's why everything's upside down? But if so, then where did we crash?

And I return on all fours to understand to the Kabbalists' yeshiva in the ground, that they're looking for God, and he's hiding. And they tell me that once the firmament was young and taut, and it was impossible to hide in the heavens. Today when everything's so loose, go find him inside thousands of folds. He's never in the same place twice, and uses disposable angels made of white plastic to transfer instructions. It's a never-ending hunt, most experts have already despaired, but we'll still find him, he must make a mistake sometime. We built a special search engine just for him, and a special network in the empty space - to catch him. And I say I have a feeling he's hiding in another place entirely, a place you won't look for him at all, a place I won't tell you about. And they tell me: Just lead us with closed eyes, without us knowing where it is. We've been looking for God for a very long time. We just want to ask him a few questions, that's all, we promise. And they organize a special team of Ethiopian ultra-Orthodox Jews in shtreimels, black on black camouflage, doesn't reflect light, and I lead them to the target. And the moment I give identification to the hit squad they suddenly pull out new unfamiliar books in the Bible and futuristic Kabbalah books I've never seen in my life from the shtreimels - and erase him.

Plague

I dreamed I was studying Gemara, and I'm chewing the page like dry matzah with black marks, and know that I have hundreds more thin pages ahead of me to reach the olive-sized portion. And suddenly it catches my eye, I see in the Tosafot before me, in black and white, something unheard of - I realize that the Tosafists are a circle of the Zohar's authors. It can't be, the Tosafot! And precisely because it's so unbelievable - it's the true secret. The secret of the Torah of Truth. And I start reading with trembling fingers in the dense lines, that extend beyond the page, and understand that there's a hidden page in the Gemara, page 3, concealed like the afikoman. And I touch the edge of the letters, next to it - pressed, afraid to fully put my hand inside, who knows what else will be there, and they'll say thief. After all, the secret isn't meant for me. And my hand is pressed trembling confused and loses the page and the book closes on it - and I can't feel that I have a hand, that I have fingers, mom! I can't type or even open the computer with a password, and all the time I feel a hot point touching me, something very immodest, intimate, in secret. A sin to my threads. And I run to the bathroom of the study hall, lock the door and look, and see that if you look really closely you can read letters in the palm, wrinkling and running inside me when I move my fingers. And I understand from them that this palm computer, in which my eyes gradually recognize more and more whole words in the dark, is connected to a secret communication network not of this world. Internet from above. Including classified operations at a level forbidden for Rebbes to know, transparent wings in the heavens that don't even appear in the holy books, entire worlds that only a handful of angels know of their existence, and everything - in the palm of my hand. What an unbelievable blunder. And I try to understand what's happening inside all the holy names and acronyms, and suddenly I hear the voice of the Rosh Yeshiva behind the door: Who's stuck there for so long? What are you doing there?

And I bandage my hand with toilet paper so they won't see, and I'm not willing to remove the bandage, and my wife is worried: If you're injured go with me to the doctor! Why aren't you showing, what are you holding there? And my hand seems to hear what she's talking about, because its appearance at night is terrible. Repulsive bumps that secrete white fluid that smears everything, it's barely possible to read between the lines, but a quick glance is enough to understand - something big is about to happen. The traffic volume jumped at night by thousands of percent, the supreme nothingness itself is sending feverish messages to angels around the clock, and for the first time we see an unusual message whose source is behind the curtain. My other hand hovers over it trembling, but you need to press to enter inside to the content and I'm afraid to touch with it too, because these stains - it's leprosy. And my wife asks: What are you doing for so long with the computer in the bathroom. Why are you secluding yourself from me? What are you writing there?

But in the morning she smiles at me: How you caressed me at night, what you did, it was amazing. But, but I didn't touch her! And they call me to the police. They ask for a fingerprint. An old woman wrapped in head coverings, wrinkled like a note in the Western Wall, that I wouldn't touch even with a stick, claims I touched her. And the policeman snickers, and they barely agree to wait with the finger until they remove the bandage. And I feel that my wife is dressing more and more modestly, even more than me. You can hardly see anything of her anymore. People from the community distance themselves from me, and my wife also hides from me, ashamed, and I see something white at the edge of the dress. And I go to check in the shower, and even under the paper you can't see anything anymore, everything is white. A new blank page has opened. And I hear my wife crying and running to the bathroom, and a horrifying thought crosses my mind - no! What a terrible mistake - I left my computer open on the bed. And I run and ask her behind the door: Why are you suddenly crying? And she doesn't answer. And I try to open and the door is locked, and I ask: What happened? And she answers: Nothing, nothing.

A Pair of Doves

I dreamed that when they came to consult with him he would ask do you believe in cockroaches? Because if you don't believe in cockroaches, how will you believe in God? Like how his wife looks for dirt and calls it cleaning. When you look for dirt you find it. This is true in politics and true in relationships and true in life. After all, it's a complete lie. After all, the ants should have been the woman's good friends. Like an army of good dwarves that come at night and help and clean the house. And his wife kills them with such cruelty, that you can't watch it. Because after all he loved her so much, that he couldn't feel it. And on Shabbat it was the peak. He would pound on the table: You think food fills the stomach? It fills the soul. At the third meal he almost exploded and liquids came out of him in an outpouring of the soul. While his wife would sit on the side and read in a book: How to Eat Like a Jewess and Look Like a Shiksa.

One night a woman who had cancer came to him. She was his mother. He told her that she had a pair of doves on the balcony upstairs, that made a mess and noise and lice in the laundry and she took their nest with the eggs and threw it away, and the doves left. And after a year the same pair returned to the same place and again built the nest. And she broke their eggs and threw everything away, and they left. And in the third year, again the same thing, the whole story. And in the fourth year again, and another year and another year. And in the seventh they returned and built and incubated. And again she threw away the nest with the eggs. But the doves didn't leave. They stayed there, and looked for the nest even though it wasn't there, and circled endlessly where the nest had been and cried and cooed and cried, it was impossible to listen to it. The next year they didn't return anymore. After that the woman died from the cancer.

Alien Lives

I dreamed that such a feminine species of aliens arrives, that they are so full of emotion, that our woman is in relation of man to woman to their man. And indeed there are many mixed couples, and my wife leaves me for an underwater alien, a kind of fish smarter than me and greater in Torah, that not only his head but all of him swims inside a shtreimel. Even the tail. And they perform a divorce ceremony also according to their Judaism, so that she can marry: One last time in the seclusion room. And then she's in a black dress, and I remove her ring and cover her with a veil, and everyone vomits on the tables: Last course, second course, first course. And finally the hardest part: A final personal farewell at the entrance in front of everyone, the parents from both sides, saying goodbye to the dear guests and returning the checks. That's it, going back to living like strangers. And hop - my wife jumps into the water.

And I marry an alien woman, and she's like a banana. And she tells me: The order is first the peel and then the fruit, unless you're a worm, in which case the order is first the fruit of the tree and then the peel. And then you can eat from the inside, without picking, without peeling, without being seen, and without getting caught. That's how we tricked God in the sin of knowledge: To eat the fruit and leave it whole. And she asks: How is it for you when you unite, can you be a worm? And she cries for no reason. And I tell her: Don't cry, my wife is moving to live under the sea. With a non-kosher alien.
- Of course he's kosher, he has fins and scales. How I miss... Would you be willing to leave this planet for me?
And I suddenly jump: It's all a lie! The Earth is flat. It's written that God stretches out the heavens - and if it was a sphere then it would be impossible to stretch the firmament, if you stretched the heavens would simply contract and fall on the ground.
- But you can circle this planet in flight, no?
- That's an illusion. There are more and more peoples, lands, but identical to those here. Some person exactly like you. And someone exactly like your wife. And yet there are tiny changes that you barely feel when you return from afar, you feel that something has changed, and don't know what. And I set out on a journey to prove it to her, traveling again and again "around the world", as if I'm circling it, but actually I'm getting farther and farther away. And I start talking to the people here, and discover there are no aliens at all, they haven't heard of them. How did I not think of this before? After all, they only landed in one place from the sky! And I come to my wife at night: Would you ever leave me for an alien? And she looks at me with a strange expression. Aliens? - she laughs - There's no such thing. I love you.

The Internet Virgin

I dreamed that water and thoughts flow together. And I think that the water bill means it's forbidden to think in the shower, and I think about this in the shower, and come out. The inner flow stops - and everything is flushed into the sewage. She's waiting for me outside ready. Naked. And I suddenly peek at the computer. And she opens her mouth: If you could you would marry the internet and not me.
- You see, how can I answer such nonsense? I can't marry the internet.
- You see, if you could you would marry it.
She cries. God what am I being accused of.
- Sweetie you know what? The internet wouldn't want to marry me.
- Yes but you - want her.
She goes into the shower and turns on the water, and the line of thought continues (The internet? She won't marry less than God, and won't compromise on anyone else. And therefore in the end she'll still get the devil. Since she was born she hasn't stopped undressing - and we still don't see her end, legs that never end. She attracts like I don't know what. And yearns. Yearnssss. The devil knows why. So it will end in an explosion. Or in a new Sabbath...).
- What are you mumbling out there?
- Never mind, I love you like a tail (and now the internet cries. What's wrong with you? The mouse will still come back to you with its tail between its legs. But I can't manage to move. Stuck in place. And only now do I see the spider at the edge of the web. And it's advancing. Getting closer. Bug, head, computer. Legs legs legs).
- (Come to bed).
- Good night, sweetie.
- Sweet dreams, honey.

(In Parentheses)

(I dreamed that I can't stop thinking about it. Not to forgive her or not to forgive yourself? And the hardest question - did you make the right mistake? Because especially if you erred in the mistake, there's no forgiveness for that. A mouse like you knows the feeeeling, when when when they disconnect you from the computer, it's the end of every thought. God, why did you create man without a tail? I'm really surprised that the book of Genesis neglects the religious engagement with this question. You know what everyone said afterwards? It doesn't suit him. No one said: It doesn't suit her. The hardest thing is to deal with someone you never knew. Where were you then, scoundrel? I must stop thinking about this, otherwise it will ruin my married life.)

Dream Fulfillment

I dreamed that the spider says: You've dreamed about this all your life. For years no one wanted to talk to you. Who would have believed you wouldn't have the strength to talk to a girl? This girl is your wife. And the internet says: What man hasn't this happened to? You worked for seven years, at night you marry Rachel, and in the morning you discover it's Leah. And the shtreimel says: You tried to grab the braid, you were left with the wig. This is the result of two different species. Hair without a head - and head without hair. It's time for the third species of man. Eve, we need another rib for the triangle. When you wake up you'll discover something new. And I say: That's all we need. And pray: Come return the woman to her place - I'm willing even without anesthesia.

To Tell?

I dreamed that Delilah says: Here are the scissors and here is the policeman. If you don't tell, I won't tell.
And Samson says: Cut my hair for your wigs, and take out my eyes with your friends. I don't want to see girls anymore, marry them if they choose. Invite the whole family to the event, and just let me lean on the walls.

You Lost This War When You Got Married - So At Least Lose Like a Man

I dreamed that in the morning she asks how did you sleep sweetie what did you dream? And at night I tell her in the synagogue, from the other side of the partition: You were simply the first one who smiled at me. The breaking of the breaking is harder than the breaking.

A Regular Column That Deals With the Shtreimel From Every Possible Angle

I dreamed that I'm founding a huge ultra-Orthodox startup called Kugel. And what we do is a network whose connections are rounded, so that it will be impossible to find anyone. Everything is crooked, bent, twisted, escaping in a curve, spiraling into itself. And then a fat and round ultra-Orthodox man comes and claims: You have a bug in your algorithm. You forgot that there's also a center to the circle, and even when everything is spinning in a frenzy it still doesn't move - there must be a point of rest. And I start looking for this center, this point that ruins everything. It has to be through such a straight connection, that I love someone. My wife asks if I love her. And I answer yes. There's nothing worse than lying to that question. I try to remember when it started. Why did I lie in the first place? But I can't remember. There's some point like that in my brain. That I can only circle around it and never touch it.

To the next chapter

The Trilogy


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The Degeneration of the Nation

On the Eve of the Holiday

She's angry at me for not responding to her texts, and the entire conversation is tense even though I don't want it to come across as unpleasant, but the truth is I'm very angry too, and all the anger is suppressed, for both of us. And I say that I asked her not to write and that I never want to hear from her again in my life no matter what happens, not even if she really needs me too, that's what I mean. And in the end I can't overcome it and I ask, because if we're already talking - and I didn't want to talk at all - but you know

By: Daughter of So-and-So to So-and-So

Candle Lighting and the Union of Souls  (Source)

I dreamed about her that my parents (still alive) are calling her despite my not wanting them to. They just want to wish her a happy new year or happy Passover and they insist. And my late mother calls and I'm standing next to her during the conversation, and I understand from what they're saying that she's pregnant and I hear and finally I get fed up and I take the phone and she continues to talk, and I'm quiet, and she thinks it's still them and she keeps telling and telling endless unimportant things she's doing, and doesn't get to personal matters and I'm waiting for her to continue talking maybe she'll reveal something to me, and on the other hand I'm surprised how much she's able to talk on and on without waiting for a response from the other side, and finally I get tired of it and I say into the receiver that it's me how are you, but my voice comes out angry like that, because I didn't control my voice because I thought to make a nice voice, and I'm walking and approaching her house while talking on the eve of the holiday, she lives in a kind of estate and I'm talking to her from the yard and walking in the yard around the house, and she's angry at me for not answering her texts, and the whole conversation is angry even though I don't want it to come out unpleasant but the truth is I'm very angry too and all the anger is suppressed like that, for both of us.

And I say that I asked her not to write and that I never want to hear from her again in my life ever no matter what happens, not even if she really needs me too, that's what I mean. And in the end I can't overcome it and I ask, because if we're already talking and I didn't want to talk at all but you know that my parents are crazy about you - and I hope that softens her to hear this - and they didn't want to listen to me, so I ask her how come you're pregnant so quickly not even three months have passed, and I care less about the pregnancy even if it's by accident, and it's probably by accident and she got excited about it, but how did she even get to such a situation, and I ask are you in a relationship with the father because it's clear to me there is a father. And all this despite there's no time to prolong the conversation because it took time to get to her, and soon the holiday begins, which I'm still not sure if it's Passover or Rosh Hashanah [Jewish New Year], and I'll miss the candle lighting.

And she says what do you mean he lives here with me we're already married, he's the most amazing guy the best I've ever had, you don't need more time than that when it's such a guy. And I try to understand from her what he has that I don't, and it's clear to me that many around her think she's gone crazy that she's pregnant so quickly but she's fine, and if everyone around is like that then maybe the guy is really less good than she says. But she's very comfortable and calm and at peace with herself that I've never seen her like this she's really become a country girl and she's happy to be pregnant, she's standing and cleaning the window in the bathroom and really doesn't care about being pregnant in the middle of her internship (although how does that work at all? It doesn't. She stopped studying). And she's also gained a lot of weight from the pregnancy and has become completely round even though it's supposed to be just the beginning, and the pregnancy itself bothers me less because it's in the future, although it seems to be progressing a lot, but it's clear to me that it can't be too advanced, and therefore unlike others who know her and are going crazy I can be calm because there's still time anyway (although it doesn't seem like she's in the mood for an abortion, but I know her that anything can still happen). But more I don't understand what happened how can it be after all she's so unstable and not sure of herself and now suddenly like this.

And I try to find out in the end with her for lack of choice - because I know her that she doesn't answer "insolent" questions and even if she answers you can't rely on it - what happened to her how is this (she knows implicitly what I think of her, but it's clear to me that she thinks I'm wrong, and certainly now that she's changed and this is a long argument between us that was) and she doesn't want to tell, maybe so as not to hurt me or something else (you can't know), and I also want to tell her about my wife who is excellent and that I also found, but I don't feel like telling her about my life and don't want to hurt her, and as far as I'm concerned let her think that I'm miserable that I haven't found yet and she doesn't deserve to know, after she hurt me more than any other person in the world. After I loved her more than any other.

And she asks why I didn't send her the dreams she asked to see, and I say it's none of her business and one day she'll see them on the internet - I try to say it gently to appease her, and to tell her in this actually that one day I will succeed with them so that she'll regret in her heart. But she's all busy with how amazing the guy is, and how much she loves him the most, more than she ever loved before (and I know her that she can love insanely really), and therefore pregnant so quickly and it's okay and she's glowing like a sun circle.

And now it's already evening, and sunset has already happened and the holiday has already begun and he's back, the guy comes home, without a suit without a hat without a kippah [Jewish skullcap] secular (!), and immediately you see that he's not okay, his face is ugly he's a head shorter than me speaks in a strange way and I don't understand what she found in him, maybe he's smart and I start to interrogate him in front of her because she doesn't say anything about him, questions like an investigation where is he from in the country. And he says from the field in Jerusalem there's some huge field in the middle of the city if I remember, because he maybe thinks I'm his friend? And that he moved to her here meaning he moved to live with her and not vice versa, and he talks like a complete idiot and answers every question because he's naive, and I ask what do you do in life and he says I'm a driver, from the drivers, you know what drivers are? And I don't understand what she found in him (after she didn't want me because I wasn't good enough - and also didn't earn money), and I ask okay what did you study, maybe he studied something cool, like mathematics or philosophy. And he says administration, you know what that is? And I don't need to ask where he studied in high school (he doesn't look like someone who studied in a yeshiva [Jewish religious school]) although he would answer me.

And he, instead of a prayer book to make kiddush [blessing over wine], opens some prayer book for me and you see things he wrote there, and I think maybe this creature is talented in writing he probably writes wonderfully and is smart terribly genius if she wants one like that, because I know she has sky-high standards and no one is good enough for her, and because something needs to compensate, and it needs to be something crazy, considering the situation, and I see that he wrote poems there like a retarded child. And I ask her what is he maybe exceptionally excellent in sex, what did you find in him, it probably has to be that because otherwise what is she doing with him, and she says: That's not the most important thing, what's important is that I love him the most like I've never loved anyone else ever and all the rest who were, the other guys, it's nothing compared to him. And that she's the happiest and most in love she's ever been, or that it's possible to be at all, and that this is it. And when it's it it's it.

Nightlife


domain: culture

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The Degeneration of the Nation

How Does Religion Benefit and Harm Literature?

The counter-revolution to the printing revolution is at our doorstep - opening new religious possibilities that were locked away from literature during the printing era

By: Twilight Evening

The Decline of the Book: Writing and Sealing for Good (Source)

The problem with literature in the modern era is that you can easily spot mistakes, even in the writing of the greatest authors, but you cannot correct them. Because in literature, there is no substitute for perspective, even world-class talent cannot replace it. Therefore, there is no substitute for the perspective of the reader who, after several generations, becomes an editor - that reader who turned central corpora from ancient literature into perfection by correcting all the mistakes that can only be seen from afar. If indeed correct, then their version became widespread and replaced the original version, like in evolution, and thus the text improved from generation to generation. In modern literature, there are copyrights and exact copies of the original, even deification of the original, as if it were a divine and sacred text, instead of understanding that what made the divine and sacred text as such was precisely the evolution, in which only the creation of God is revealed.

Therefore, we are left with flawed texts that have greatness but also glaring defects - and this is modern literature. In its greatest works, one can identify severe mistakes that cannot be corrected, and it's so unfortunate and jarring. The very idea of the original - is the problem of modern literature. The best ancient literature has no author. Such a concept doesn't exist. And precisely because of this, the text can become canonical and sacred, unlike the modern human text. The great fortune is that in the post-human information age, we can once again create text without an origin, and therefore the possibility that has been blocked since the end of the Middle Ages is reopening before us: the opening of the gates of heaven.

The problem of modern literature worsens as time passes because organic correction in a work can only happen continuously - it's not about a single editor who suddenly comes after generations and fixes everything, but about an ongoing dynamic between authority and the openness of the source. Therefore, literature in our time, suffering from premature and immature codification (known as the invention of printing), loses the critical stage of its development as a dynamic oral tradition that gradually takes shape - and it is in the nature of a distortion that cannot be corrected in the next period.

For example, today it is no longer possible to correct the flaws of the Bible (even the most obvious ones), no matter how talented one is - the result would be catastrophic. Because the organic nature has been severed. For instance, the gaps in the Bible stories are gaps only according to a later perception. They didn't feel there were gaps but that they were telling everything necessary. Only according to the more psychological writing that developed later are there lacunae in understanding and describing character motivations. And only from theology is there a lacuna in explaining the ideology in the Bible. To us, these are gaps that cry out to heaven for completion. But they, in their perception - told everything (and did not "leave gaps"). Only according to the writing of long descriptions that developed later were they economical and concise. God was not taciturn - only in relation to man.

The invention of printing had very unexpected historical consequences. For example: The invention of printing led to secularization, because instead of one book at the center of the canon, with interpretations and literature revolving around it, there are many books. The very change in structure caused secularization, in many ways. For instance, a reasonable educated person can know only one book by heart, and then it's clear that it's worth knowing the most central one. But suddenly there's no need to know anything by heart - because many books are available. And so the invention of the codex also led to monotheism, because there is an advantage to a message spread in a book, centralizing it, and then there is an advantage to religions of one book. These are structural changes that caused religious changes. Before that, in the ancient world, there was an advantage to stories and not to books, and therefore to polytheism, because everything had to be condensed into a system of statues that are symbols. And at the beginning of writing, there was an advantage to the engraved letter, and therefore to religions that are governmental ideologies. Because only those who had a strong structure could say something continuous.

And today, the information age and post-print era are again leading to religious change (and perhaps in this case - a change in secularism) and to the end of the idea of culture, simply because structurally on the network there is inherently no center and no hierarchies, meaning institutions. Just as the abolition of the central book caused a process of secularization from religion - so the abolition of the cultural center leads to a process of secularization from culture. Therefore, the one suffering the most today is literature - that is, the product of the printing revolution - which is the written content of culture, because literature is the equivalent in culture to the spiritual canon of religion. And now it is expected that what happened to religion will happen to that culture that replaced religion in its prestige and sanctity. Culture will survive only in a secluded and defensive community, and will influence the larger society only because of the cultural capital it has accumulated as a source for further development, exactly like the situation of religion today. But outside there will be barbarism. Many vast herds of uncultured and foolish people, but wise in their own eyes, whom technology will gradually turn into one large and divinely wise brain - without having even one truly wise person in it. Post-humanity will actually be post-individual.

Today, the ideology that unites them all into one large system, like the Tower of Babel, is the ideology of economy (which has been common to all powers, including Eastern ones, since the mid-20th century) - money is their common language. But this ideology itself is already in the process of becoming the ideology of technology (and therefore today the technological firms - which are what's between economy and technology - are at the center). According to this latter ideology, the main thing to do in the world is to advance and develop technology, which will solve all our problems. At the logical end of this ideology, technology will become an end in itself, and not just a means. The problem with this ideology is that it is boring (meaning it doesn't touch the human soul and isn't narrative), and therefore open to a new religious outbreak.

And this time the outbreak will be on the network, viral, and therefore will not necessarily have an individual source. Alternatively, if technology touches the soul and fiction - this will be the solution. And still, this touch on the soul will need psychological-narrative content. In this sense, psychology was on the one hand a reaction, because it was based on narrative oral speech between two (as in pre-monotheism, hence its fondness for polytheistic myth), but on the other hand through the privatization of stories as the number of people. Therefore, it was also reactionary - and also preceded the social network, where every person is a story - and therefore man is a story.

Now we need a more advanced substitute for psychology, which will touch the soul in a literary-technological way - and will be popular among the barbarians. A likely candidate for this role is Kabbalah, but Kabbalah has not yet found its technological Paul, who might come from Chabad or perhaps from Breslov, and perhaps - and this is a pity - will not come at all. We, as Jews, must open a new religious-technological laboratory within our spiritual space, because if the new religion comes out this time from the Far East and not from us - it is our cultural end. And if the new technological religion comes out of Islam (and history sometimes has such a sense of humor) - it is our end in other senses as well.

Culture and Literature