I think that I would be remiss if, with Rosh HaShana looming, I didn't ask for forgiveness from The Readership for any offense taken from anything posted here over the course of the past year (thanks for the idea, meredith). If I don't get a chance to post tomorrow, have a meaningful Chag Samayach.

Naomi Chana gets around to reviewing Nothing Sacred. Hilarity ensues:

First Time Really Regretting The Absence Of Footnotes: I know there's a lot of debate about what the cherubim atop the Ark might have looked like, but "huge, scary, faceless monsters" (p. 21) is an option that had somehow passed me by -- and this is a pity, because I welcome anything that makes teaching the last four parashiyot in Exodus more entertaining. Cherub #1 as The Blob and Cherub #2 as The Thing From Outer Space sounds like a great starting point.
First Time Wondering Whether We Are Actually Talking About Jewish History In An Alternate Universe: "The emerging talmudic law stressed that God was experienced differently by everybody. ... There was no longer any official doctrine on what God was" (p. 28). See, I didn't realize that "emerging talmudic law" mean "Kierkegaard." Silly me.

Edward Said is dead. Initial comment: given the potential verb from his last name, this reminds me of the confusion I had when a Zionist I'd theretofore not known about kicked the bucket, "Menachem Begin is Dead."
I don't know if his death will have much effect on anything. Pretty much all he had to say was already said in books and articles, and he wasn't a frequent commenter beyond that. It's conceivable that this will create a leadership vacuum in terms of the Palestinian cause in the U.S., since Said was the person taken most seriously, due to his academic credentials. There is no one out there who can replace him in the halls of academia. It's possible, though, that the growing presence of Arabic media commentators from Al Jazeera and Al Hayat would have rendered him somewhat irrelevant over time, anyway.
By the way, there's a pretty safe hop-skip-and-jump over the contentious details of his biography:

Said was born in 1935 in Jerusalem, then part of British-ruled Palestine, but spent most of his adult life in the United States. He wrote passionately about the Palestinian cause but also on a variety of other subjects, from English literature, his academic specialty, to music and culture.

Selichos Senryu
I actually wrote these Saturday night...

Medieval poems,
Tapping my fist on my chest.
God, please forgive me.

"Merciful," "Gracious."
Characteristics of God.
And yet, here we are.

The holy man speaks
Telling us what to do now.
Last year, much the same.

And here we gather,
In part, intending to sing,
But mostly to moan.

Translators' field day
Completely different meaning,
Hebrew v. English.

Little gray booklets
Save them for next year, after.
Be careful with them.

Close with Tachanaun:
Familiar daily prayer.
Really, a nice touch.

NYT article on the non-likelihood of a NY State Democratic Party decision to endorse gay marriage's passing the state legislature. What are some reasons it couldn't pass?

And some Democratic lawmakers with large Catholic or Orthodox Jewish constituencies may also have difficulty embracing the idea.

Many drew fire from the Conservative Party and the Catholic Church after they voted for the gay-rights bill last year, and are not eager to anger them further before next year's election.

Cute article on Ner Yisrael in the Maryland Sun. Lots of good tidbits, but this one especially caught my eye:

One morning last week graduate students Dovi Kreismann and Chaim Barry were discussing stolen property under Jewish law. The question: If a thief steals an item that fluctuates in value, how much should he pay in restitution?
It sounds esoteric, but in the Orthodox community, this is exactly the kind of dispute a rabbi might have to resolve. The challenge is not just to find an answer, said Professor Tzvi Krakauer, but to grasp the underlying logic of different opinions in the text and apply it to contemporary life.

Rabbi Naftali Citron of the Carlebach Shul is into the Dalai Lama, citing him at Friday night meals. So if, as Elder Avraham asserts, the Kabbalah Centre is "Scientology Done Jewish," does that mean the same for Carlebach & Tibetan Buddhism?
UPDATE: Speaking of the Dalai Lama, Beliefnet has video clips and transcripts of recent speeches.

NYT:"27 Israeli Reserve Pilots Say They Refuse to Bomb Civilians" And the headline's not really off-target, given what their letter stipulates. You had to see this coming, and you have to assume this is the first of many letters along these lines.

In the "Most Unnecessary Move That's Insulting to Women At the Joel Investiture" Department, there's the pic of

First ladies of Yeshiva University Mindy Lamm, Esther Joel, and Abby Belkin.

I just realized that the Rutgers Palestinian Solidarity thing is taking place October 10-12, conflicting in part with Succos, which begins October 11th. I'd been planning on covering it; now I'll at best get to go to half of it. Anyone else planning on showing up?

OU's homepage currently has a really annoying Flash intro wishing us all a happy year.

Welcome to the pre Rosh haShana edition of the Jewish Press letters section. Its a pretty benign week at the Jewish Press, with a decent show of letters from the loyal readers. In particular, Chani Schmutter wrote an amazingly touching letter about visiting the Taubenfeld family when they were sitting shiva for their mother who was killed in a terror attack. The rest of the letters are more run-of-the-mill. To kill Arafat or not (don't)? Do we like Big Government (course not)? Are we sick enough yet with The Passion (apparently not)? Two letters stood out as candidates for the Stupid Letter Of the Week. The first was by Robert Markowitz, about Lishma:

I wish to congratulate The Jewish Press for its courage in confronting the problem of misguided left-wing Orthodox rabbis who join with those of the deviant streams in Lishma. Such theological dialogues not only serve to legitimize these movements, they confuse the unlearned and further divide our people. Our sages’ condemnation of such so-called movements is quite clear.
Participating in a forum with them — thereby seeming to give equality to the teachings of so-called rabbis who deny the fundamental principles of our faith — is definitely not the answer.

I am very disturbed by all the charities that include some form of Hashem`s name in their contribution request letters, whether in the form of a bracha or a tefillah. Many people, myself included, throw some of these envelopes away without ever opening them. I am quite sure that, inadvertently, I have been guilty of disposing of Hashem`s name in a totally inappropriate way.
Now I try to open all envelopes just to make sure there is no shaimos in them. I don`t understand why these yeshivas and frum organizations do this. Is there some sort of heter for this? Isn`t it a classic case of Lifnei ivair lo sitain michshol? In fact, a recent issue of The Jewish Press contained an insert that had Hashem`s name in it which fell out of our paper when it was delivered by our letter carrier. At first we didn`t even realize it was an insert. I can only imagine how many more of these inserts fell out and were disposed of improperly. How many ended up in the garbage?
What a desecration of Hashem`s name this is.

A quick thought: all over the blogosphere right now there is discussion about the Sacramento Bee's decision to edit the blog of reporter Daniel Weintraub. The problem from the SacBee's end is that it feels responsible for the content, and therefore blah blah blah. Within the standard medium of the Bee (that of daily newspapers) there certainly is a notable difference between blog content and expectations versus those for newspapers. Within the Jewish media world, I'm inclined to think this is less so; the massive quantity of factual errors in nearly every issue of just about any Jewish weekly one comes across, and the dearth of corrections resulting therefrom, leads me to think that blogging is necessarily more responsive in actual newspapering terms. Moreso, that blogs' immediacy lends to quicker, more concise, more scrutinized and more on-point access to the news than the weeklies indicates that blogs can often be doing a better job than the weeklies in terms of the role that weeklies intend to occupy.
There's obviously some irony in my statements here, given that I've been largely unproductive on the blog front since I had to send my laptop in for repairs. But J-blogs, from which one can get just about all the most Jewish-relevant news and opinion out there in roughly 10-15 minutes a day, while encouraging interaction via comments and post updates, have the real potential to surpass the weeklies in terms of value to the reader. I think our relatively large readership indicates this.
My point in this is to say that Jewish weeklies have never had the quality of editing that, for instance, the Bee does, so editing blogs would be a complete redundancy. If any publications wake up to this reality, it shouldn't be long before we see J-blogs at J-publications. For instance, Ami Eden's blog should have a URL of something like AmiEden.Forward.com. The Forward does link to Eden's blog from their homepage, so I wonder what exactly is keeping them from hosting blogs. Yada should be hosted at Jewsweek. And the The New York Jewish Week should get its blogging act together. The only thing that will allow Jewish weeklies to survive in-print much longer is the fact that Orthodox and many Conservative Jews won't use a computer on Shabbos -- but that paradigm can only survive so long as Jews are still willing to get their news as much as 1 1/2 weeks late in a paper that leaves ink from poorly-crafted articles on their fingers. With the emergence of OnlySimchas as a major news source, all the foundations that support these outmoded weeklies should be considering the soundness of their investment in a medium that only speaks to the Jewish public, and doesn't engage it in a dialogue, as blogs will do.
UPDATE: Lo and behold, the Forward is emphasizing its blogs, and even hosting one. The homepage has been changed at some point in the last few days (perhaps in response to this post -- maybe someone there can let us know?). And now features AmiEden.com and the Forward-hosted Campaign Confidential blog, under a heading "Forward Blogs". Tremendous! A great sign that shows the Forward is moving ahead not only of other Jewish weeklies, but many prominent publications in the general media world. Although the Forward homepage still doesn't list other blogs in its long links list (and, curiously, neither Eden nor Kessler have blogrolls), this is certainly a positive step.

Mesora Guy debunks Feminism:

Perhaps men err by thinking, 'men have more mitzvos, so we are more important'. Having more mitzvos does not mean women cannot choose to follow all that men follow. It simply means that women have no obligation, but they can derive equal perfection by following the mitzvos as men do.
Of course there are areas where the Rabbis limited womens' involvement, such as reading from the Torah. But this in no way means that a woman is inferior. As Rabbi Mann stated, the Gemara says that initially women were permitted to read from the Torah. The Rabbis however saw that man's honor would be removed had women continue to read. This Rabbi Mann explained means that it would show men as incapable if women fulfilled man's role as the perpetuator of Torah. So to keep man's honor intact, the Rabbis prohibited women from reading the Torah. In reality, it is not a diminution of women's honor which the Rabbis enacted, but just the opposite, it was to protect man from losing his.

The Forward tackled online matchmaking last week.

The Orthodox community is divided on the issue of singles meeting online. But Rabbi Avi Shafran, public affairs director for Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox advocacy group, defends Internet dating.
"Many of our constituents shun the Internet and believe the whole medium is treyf," he said. "But as you move further to the left, to the Modern Orthodox end of the spectrum, you see many more people taking advantage of it."
"It provides an opportunity for people to get to know people by their thoughts," he said. "When you take away the element of meeting someone in person, some of the less important things are removed."
Ironically, Shafran sees a connection between the modern concept of people meeting online and the age-old tradition of an older member of a religious community getting two younger people together.
"This is the same idea behind the concept of a traditional match," Shafran said. "In a sense [meeting online] is ultra-traditional."

CBN: The Mystery of God's Healing Power:

"QUESTION: I know that healing is promised in the Word of God as part of the new covenant, but why do we see so little healing and miracles in our churches today?
PAT: Do you remember what Jesus said to the church in Laodicea? 'You are rich. You are increased with goods, having need of nothing.' I think that describes American Christianity. We are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing.
Jesus said, 'Blessed are the spiritual beggars, for theirs is the kingdom of God' [Matthew 5:3]. You have to be really desperate. When you get desperate with God, things start happening. Why should you want healing if you can go to see the doctor? If you have a headache, he will give you an aspirin. If you are a little emotional, he gives you Prozac. If you have something wrong with your skin, he scrapes it off. If your hip doesn't work, he gives you a new one. We have gotten used to doctors and medicine that take care of these things. We are not desperate. But when we begin to get desperate with God, we begin to see miracles.

YU does a nice job by quickly posting Richard Joel's investitorial address. He spoke powerfully and earnestly (I could honestly be accused of being somewhat inspired at points), and actually hit some stuff right on the head. For example:

We have hardly begun to think in interdisciplinary terms. How do we encourage interdisciplinary efforts among and between the schools? What an intellectual and teaching resource we have if we collaborate, if we envision centers for Ethics and Leadership, within our walls, and in the community. Imagine focusing the educational resources of the university on the increasingly fine Yeshiva University High Schools. What a laboratory they can be. The YU Museum is an educational resource waiting to be tapped. The whole can be greater than the sum of its parts. Our faculty and administration are ripe for the challenge; our students are deserving of its success.

How do we strengthen the professional training components of RIETS so they complement the quality of the learning, even as we support and strengthen our outstanding Yeshiva?

Rabbi Daniel Lapin on The Passion and whether it has the potential to rouse anti-Semitism like medieval passion plays did:

Suggesting equivalency between American Christians today and those of European history is to be offensive and ungrateful. Quite frankly, if it is appropriate to blame today's American Christians for the sins of past Europeans, why isn't it OK to blame today's Jews for things that our ancestors may have done? Clearly both are wrong, and doing so harms our relationships with one of our few remaining friends in the world today.

WorldNetDaily: Nov. 22, 1963: 'All you've heard is wrong':

[Brad O'Leary and L.E. Seymour] build a case that leads to a stunning, but convincing conclusion: President John F. Kennedy was killed Nov. 22, 1963, as the result of a massive conspiracy between the CIA-installed government of South Vietnam, the French global heroin syndicate and the New Orleans Mafia.

There were two major religious events yesterday in New York City: Richard Joel's investiture and the Dalai Lama's speech. I missed both to attend the wedding of David Hain and Ariele Mortkowitz. Consider this an open thread to discuss either/both event(s), providing your first-hand reporting and insights.

I haven't had a chance to read it myself, but check out the NYT Magazine's article on Chabad and its Messianism -- it's what everyone was reading at the Richard Joel Investitutue while waiting for Bloomberg to finally finish speaking. Speaking of the Investitute, stay tuned for later, because (obviously?) I have what to say about it.