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Torah – I’m not Scottish, my father is but he lost his accent ages ago; my grandparents moved to England when he was about 9/10.
Robert ‘Rabbie’ Burns – Scotland’s national poet.
What is it with people in the CR and True Scotsmen?! They pop up everywhere! GAW sincerely believes that someone is not a Talmid Chochom because they did something GAW disagrees with, because if they were a TRUE Talmid Chochom they couldn’t have; DaasYochid has never been mevazeh Gedolim because if he was mevazeh them then they couldn’t have been a TRUE Godol. I mean, I like Scotland – beautiful country, lovely people – in fact my father’s Scottish but enough with the True Scotsmen already! I feel like I should be drinking whisky and Irn Bru, eating haggis and reading Rabbie Burns whilst wearing a kilt and simultaneously playing ‘Farewell to Stromness’ on the bagpipes… Aaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhhh! Actually, that whisky might not be such a bad idea after all….
Gamanit – I was being facetious…
Gamanit – “none of my parents” – you have more than two?!
Yserbius – Brilliant!
Thought coup d’ectat was a typo…
So the ones I know:
Coup d’etat – Basically a revolution, overthrowing the government.
Vicious Infinite Regress – Surprised you didn’t know this, what with your maths background. Fractals are a good example; it’s a thing that breaks down into a smaller things identical to itself infinitely, the old picture of a man looking at the picture of himself looking at a picture of himself looking at a picture of himself ad infinitum business.
Vicious Circle – A series of events that causes itself; A causes B which causes C which causes A.
Apodictic Hygiene – Not sure about the hygiene part but apodictic means a clearly constructed logical argument where the conclusion is inescapable.
Vermiculate – Basically, squiggly decoration.
Horriplatively – Doesn’t exist, but horriplation does and means goosebumps.
Mutatis Mutandis – Changing as little as possible but making necessary changes.
Surd – Really surprised you didn’t know this one. It’s a root number that can only be expressed as the root itself, e.g. root 3 or cubed root of 5 etc.
Intrigued to know what the others mean.
nishdaynegesheft – names identified as Jewish. What, like Selig (German), Shprintzy (short for Esperanza, Spanish), Feivish (Greek Phoebus), Wolf (German), Zalman (German)? Thomas is a more Jewish name, at least it’s Loshon Hakodesh (Te’umis – twinned, a nickname commonly given to twins in late 2nd Mikdash times)…
OOM – it’s a good one, especially if you know your Scottish history…
Ferd – zdad isn’t making it up, my sister-in-law’s brother is the one who asked R’ Elyashiv the sheilo.
SaysMe – Thanks!
If we take the same criteria for proof of one’s own existence as Descartes did the answer in your case is unclear.
Yekke2 – It’s a thought experiment variously called the ‘brain in a jar’ experiment or ‘Descarte’s evil genie’. Both are really different set-ups of the same idea: how would you know if you were nothing more than the dream of an evil genie/brain in a jar. From this Descartes essentially drew the same conclusion as you – cogite ergo sum (I think therefore I am), or in your case ‘wake me up’. In other words, the knowledge of your own awareness that you are aware means that you must exist to have that awareness. I know that previous sentence sounds a bit hinky but it’s easy enough to get your head round with a bit of thought.
OOM – 5 elephants. One crashed.
PBA – since when is Motzei Pesach not during sefira?
notasheep – Esther is the Persian name for the planet Venus (Istahar), as quoted in the Gemoro (Maseches Megilla) not the medrash.
Oh yeah, and the word is “supposedly”. Just so next time you try to sound condescending you do it correctly.
If you want to do it properly then it’s no music whatsoever, acapella or otherwise. Just voices singing is no better than just voices going ‘wa-wa’, making guitar noises and beat-boxing. Believe me, sefira and the 3 weeks are pretty much the hardest times of the year for me as I eat, drink and breathe music but I get through them without any music because that’s what you gotta do.
The ‘Joseph’s new screen-names’ count for the last few days is now up to 8. Just so’s the olam are aware…
Totally off topic, but Joseph – you’ve been quite busy lately haven’t you? That’s, what, 5 or 6 new user names in 2 days… Bored?
Hehe!
Bruria is a good name…
How could he not have known?! It’s a whacking great clay man going around beating up Czechs, that kind of thing tends to get noticed. If a mumar knew, the Jews certainly did.
Sam2 – I’m open to the idea of a Maharal Golem, like I said before. I’m questioning the validity of the Aufhaussen source.
Haleivi – We have a mimah nafshoch – if the Aufhaussen record is accurate (or valid) then the Maharal probably didn’t make a Golem (or else how could Aufhaussen claim otherwise 10/20 years later against people who would have seen or heard of it); if the Maharal made a Golem then the Aufhaussen record isn’t accurate (or valid).
Your choice, can’t take both…
Haleivi – That’s not what I was saying. I was saying that if a document suddenly appears 250 years after it was purportedly written that has not been published before it is unwise to assume that the authorship is genuine and that the content is reliable. I’m sure you would not take the word of the New Testament (a document with similar origin, though it appeared 70-90 years after it was purportedly written rather than 250) just because it said it was accurate. The writings of the Maharal were published in his lifetime and (despite a break in publication) can be traced back to him.
Furthermore, the mumar also doesn’t use the word golem (that appears in brackets) but calls them men made out of clay. And he is still talking about golems in general. And you haven’t actually answered the question: how could R’ Aufhaussen claim no golems were made anymore when all present would have seen or heard of one had the Maharal made one?
Joseph – shaychus?!
old man –
“the Maharal could have made a Golem but probably didn’t” to be a bit of a cop-out, this is exactly the shitto of R’ Avrohom Gurwitz shlit’a. “
This is a good technique to use if one wants to increase the stature of the person spoken of.But as an argument, it is worse than useless. The claim that “So and so can do this but he didn’t want to”, or “could have done it, but probably didn’t” leads nowhere, except to the suspicion that the reason he didn’t was because he couldn’t.
I think you got the wrong end of the wrong stick. I was referring to those who maintain that the Maharal’s Golem definitely existed and to say he could have made one but didn’t is a cop-out. To which I responded that there are some very high profile Rabbonim who hold that. I was not trying to say that the Maharal ‘didn’t want to’, simply that he had the requisite knowledge (Sefer Yetzira etc.) and piety to do it. We know he learned Sefer Yetzira, this is well documented, as well as being very well-versed in many areas of Kabbala. We know he was an extremely holy person. This is all that was meant. Nothing more.
HaLeivi – I was referring to footnote 28, not the main body of the article. His point is that it is clear from the vikuach that the mumar is referring to Golems in general (not the Maharal’s specifically) to which R’ Aufhaussen responds that no-one makes Golems anymore. It is a ra’aya simply that people knew of Golems in general (especially this mumar who had learned Gemoro), but if the Maharal had made one in Prague (where the vikuach took place) 10/20 years earlier there is no way that R’ Aufhaussen could claim that no-one makes them anymore (a sort of ‘lo chotzif inash’).
I can’t do better than take a Sefer’s word that it was written when it was. It says it was written in ??? ???”?, which is six years after the Maharal was Niftar.
This is the point. You can choose to believe it, but there is no way that you can show it to someone else as proof. To take the word of a book first published 250 years after it was supposedly written where there is no corroborative proof of the accuracy of its content is dubious. If you wish to believe it, fine, but don’t try and use it as proof for others. If we could do that I could claim that thousands of years ago Elves, Dwarves, Wargs, Trolls, Orcs, Uruk-Hai, Ents, Giant Spiders and Oliphaunts were hanging around what is now Northern Europe because I take the book’s word for it.
The oldest printing I could find of the Aufhaussen debate is from 1863, still not 1614. Which still makes it an unverified secondary source. Even if it is accurate, having had a second look it appears as if it is not a ra’aya but aderaba… See
http://seforim.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/golem-of-prague-in-recent-rabbinic.html
Haleivi – I couldn’t find any historical references to this vikuach you linked to, nor to the protagonists. The Sefer in which it appears was not published until the 1960’s. So what we have, in historical terms, is an unverified secondary source which is hardly reliable.
To all those saying that they find the line “the Maharal could have made a Golem but probably didn’t” to be a bit of a cop-out, this is exactly the shitto of R’ Avrohom Gurwitz shlit’a. I heard this from a friend who learned with him b’chavrusa. My own feelings on the whole Prague Golem issue are entirely ambivalent, though Golems in general appear to be historically well documented, not least those in the Gemoro (as others have pointed out).
benignuman – The Ender Saga is one of my favourite series…
I lent it to someone a while back and thought it might have been you… Never mind…
0.999999… limits to 1 but has a place-holding value of less than 1.
Haven’t put anything up here for a while, so I thought I’d drudge up an old one:
Fix the World
The famine, the war, the hungry, the poor –
The picture of the little boy who
Had no clothes, his ribs exposed
Through taut skin, his arms so thin
He could have been a toy.
Another missing child, another tragedy,
Another quake, another flood, another million refugees.
And I sat and cried:
And G-d replied:
For I did what I should do,
I made a way to fix it
notasheep – BTW, do you know where my copy of Good Omens got to?
OOM –
I don’t object to people liking those books, but if insist on naming them the BEST series then I will be forced to beat them over the head with my hardcover single-volume The Lord of the Rings. and drop the collected Discworld works on their toes.
And I shall then inform them that there is such a thing as The Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales before asking them to play spot the difference between Twilight and True Blood.
notasheep – Never mind you read Neverwhere, you owned a copy of it… (Well, I yarshened it to you, but still…)
OOM – So I tell you they need to be read in order and you go out and buy the third one first… *sigh*
OOM – Sorry about the late reply but had no internet over pesach… It’s difficult to know where to start with Tom Holt, maybe his latest, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Sausages” or one of the Paul Carpenter series (though these should be read in order), the first is “The Portable Door”. Or, if you have any sort of slight kind of interest in various forms of ancient mythologies from around the world, some of the earlier ones like “Who’s afraid of Beowulf”, “Expecting Someone Taller” or “Grailblaizers”. Definitely DO NOT start with “Falling Over Sideways” or “Little People”. Apart from that, knock yourself out!
OOM – Smoke and Mirrors was good, but if I remember rightly there were one or two stories that should be skipped. Fragile Things was much better, but I’ll have to disagree with you and say my favourite was either the zombies in New Orleans or the club where they eat endangered species.
writersoul – I’m also going to recommend getting into Gaiman via Neverwhere, though Stardust is also a good bet for new Gaimanites. Or, as notasheep recommended, Coraline – witty and creepy and not too complicated plot-wise (unlike some of the others…)
Right, so we’ve covered Pratchett, Adams and Gaiman so who else here reads Tom Holt?
notasheep – Was a bit busy finishing a TMA due for tomorrow noon. But I’m back now! Well til Thursday when I’m not sure if I’ll have internet til after Pesach, but hey…
OOM – So we have another Neil Gaiman fan… Whod’ve thunk it…
Aha! A whatchermacallit!
Often. Plastic is simply a generic name for long–chain polycarbons…
Is it made out plastic?
OCOT – I’d never actually heard Richard Corey when I wrote it. At least mine doesn’t end with the guy blowing his brains out….
Previous post should read “statistically significant”
RABBAIM – “Verapoi- I asked over 10 people and not one associated herring with a specific non Jewish nation. But each one named Pizza as Italian.
Get the difference? try it yourself!”
That’s because you never asked any Europeans. Here herring is very distinctly associated with Holland and Scandinavia. Besides, 10 people is not really a statistically signifying sample.
Zdad – Oh, and this presenter’s surname is Francesca… Right…
Zdad – And Francesca (which is what 42 wrote) is the feminine version…