@baruch@babka.social
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baruch

@baruch@babka.social

Software developer. Hassidic Jewish thinker. Husband and father. Science fiction lover. Stranger in a strange land. #Jewish #Torah #inspirational #quotes #fedi22 #searchable

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baruch, to random
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A Jewish Mastodon admin has been harassed and sent death threats and now a ham with swastikas on it has been delivered to his doorstep, so he has been forced to step down as admin and go into hiding.

https://tooters.org/@victor/110573128664662654

baruch, to philosophy
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"In those days many people were singing the praises of twenty minutes of something called Transcendental Meditation per day …

I thought: well, in twenty minutes I can daven (say the traditional Jewish prayers). Why do I need to try something that comes from another religion?

So I started to daven every morning (or afternoon, if I didn't find time in the morning), as I still do.

… I found it to be a transformative activity."

— Hilary Putnam, Jewish Philosophy as a Guide to Life, page 3.

https://iupress.org/9780253351333/jewish-philosophy-as-a-guide-to-life/

baruch, to random
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“A few days ago, the mask went from slipping to completely off: Stop Zionist Hate began spreading overt antisemitic content, including invoking the antisemitic trope that Jews killed Jesus.”

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/elon-musk-israel-gaza-war-antisemitism-rcna131327

baruch, to ArtificialIntelligence
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🗣️ Curated Conversation & Shabbat meal: Can Robots Be Jewish?

🤖 Can an AI be considered human? Can I make a robot minyan?

👉 Join The Convo on 2/2/24: https://mytechtribe.org/firstfriday

baruch, to random
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There are records of Jews living in Yemen going back to 110 BCE. The Jews of Yemen have a unique culture and religious tradition going back thousands of years, and they have contributed so much to worldwide Jewish culture. After decades of violent ethnic cleansing there is only 1 Jew left in Yemen. His name is Levi Marhabi. He is being held in jail for helping get a community Torah out of Yemen before it could be destroyed, and will likely be executed. Thus ends the story of Jews in Yemen.

https://combatantisemitism.org/campaigns/freelevimarhabi-and-stop-houthi-antisemitism/

baruch, to Jewish
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The first website was created in 1991 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN. In 1993, web pioneer Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Kazen, known online as YY, created one of the first 500 websites. He named it Chabad-Lubavitch of Cyberspace, and it was the first Jewish website, making Jewish texts, articles, and an "Ask the Rabbi" service available for the first time on the new World Wide Web. Now it is known simply by its address as Chabad.org, and remains the most visited Jewish website, providing more free books, articles, videos, podcasts, live classes, news, calendar tools, SMS alerts, and more every day. Today marks 25 years since his untimely passing in 1998 at the age of 44.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/36222/jewish/Our-Founding-Director.htm
@mazeldon

baruch, to random
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A Shavuot Ketubah is a marriage contract between God and the Jewish people written to commemorate the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai which we celebrate on Shavuot. It was a medieval practice among the Jews of Italy and North Africa. This is a rare illuminated Ashkenazi example from Galicia in 1914.

https://cja.huji.ac.il/browser.php?mode=set&id=45457

baruch, to hebrew
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The idea that the body must be tamed or even “beaten” into submission is a pervasive one. In his book, Walking Words, the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano sums up prevailing contemporary views of the body succinctly: “The church says: the body is sin. Science says: the body is a machine. Advertising says: the body is business. The body says: I am a fiesta.”

The Jewish perspective on the body is quite different. Whereas some traditions view corporeal life as an obstacle course—a series of challenges designed to test our spiritual resolve and integrity—Judaism sees the body as the interface and means of expression for the soul in physical reality. In this way, the body gives the soul a voice, and the soul provides the song.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/5785436/jewish/Body-Guf.htm#utm_medium=social&utm_source=mastodon

baruch, to random
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Every year, on Shabbat Parshat Chayei Sarah, over 30,000 Jews gather in Hebron to visit the Cave of the Patriarchs, where the Jewish patriarchs Sarah and Abraham are buried as described in the week's Torah portion after Abraham purchased the land. The Torah later states that Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Leah are also buried there, and that the whole city of Hebron was given to Caleb of the tribe of Judah. Despite clear historic proof of ownership, this ironically remains a location that is usually forbidden to Jews.

baruch, to random
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I'm sad that Firefox OS and Kai OS are both defunct. I would love a small, cheap, low-powered phone that still has some basic smartphone features (email, driving directions, TOTP generator, QR code scanner, podcast player, WhatsApp) and a responsive UI.

baruch, to mazeldon
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Rabbi Ilya says: The world endures only in the merit of the one who restrains himself during an argument.
(Talmud, Chullin 89a)

@mazeldon

baruch, to Judaism
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Next few months of the Jewish calendar, translated for the uninitiated:

  • The fruit birthday.
  • Happy Month 1
  • Happy Month 2 with dress up day, wine, and handing out food.
  • Anxiety & cleaning followed by 8 days of cardboard crackers, more wine, and lots of talking.
  • Sad time, beards, and no music until cheesecake day.

baruch, to random
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In describing the giving of the Torah on Sinai, the Torah writes that G-D spoke in “a great voice that did not cease.”

The Midrash offers 3 explanations:

  1. The voice was not limited to Hebrew. but spoke the languages of all 70 foundational nations.

  2. The voice is continuous - speaking to each of us now, this very day, although we cannot hear it.

  3. The voice did not have an echo.

Of these three reasons, the third seems the most perplexing. After all, shouldn’t the Creator of all speak with a little reverb? One would expect the giving of the Torah to have all the bass, the Dolby Digital Surround Sound that you’d expect from the Master of the Universe.

The reason is because when the Torah was given, it was not meant to stand in contradiction to Creation, but rather to part of our world. An echo shows that the sound waves bounced off everything - but the Torah was absorbed and became one with all.

Good Shabbos! :two_candles:​ :challah:​

baruch, to Palestine
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Hillary Clinton lays out all the facts about the war in Gaza, and the history behind it. Here's what you need to know.

Hillary Clinton speaks with the hosts on the talk show "The View", including Whoopi Goldberg, about the war in Gaza, its history, and its future.

baruch, to random
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More and more reports are surfacing of Gazans complaining of the ways Hamas oppresses them and increases their suffering in this war. Eliminating Hamas is not only necessary for the safety of those living in Israel, but those living in Gaza as well. I want to see more calls for Hamas to end their war crimes with an unconditional surrender.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/08/elderly-gazan-accuses-hamas-stealing-aid-rare-criticism/

baruch, to random
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"[Martin Luther] King was pro-Israel and pro-Zionist, recognizing much anti-Zionist rhetoric as anti-Semitic. Christian Europe traditionally viewed Jews as the ultimate villains; now, he understood, anti-Zionism cast Israel, the collective Jew, as the modern world’s ultimate villain. Moreover, King and his allies feared this sloppy analogizing—comparing Israel to South Africa or the segregationist South—as threatening the purity of their struggle against what one activist called 'real racism.' … Many civil rights activists resented the Soviets and Arabs hijacking their language. Bayard Rustin described the 'incalculable damage' done to the fight against racism, when the word becomes a political weapon rather than a moral standard."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/remaking-martin-luther-king-as-anti-zionist

baruch, to hebrew
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The Hebrew word for life, chaim, is phrased in the plural and literally translates as “lives,” indicating multiple phases and expressions of a single, never-ending life…

In stark contrast to the culture of “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die,” when Jews have occasion to drink, they say “l’chaim!” (to life) reminding each other that there is so much more to life than the shallow indulgences of the here and now, and that every meaningful act one does and every mitzvah one performs creates an energetic imprint that outlives our temporary time in a physical body.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/5786527/jewish/Life-Chaim.htm

baruch, to hebrew
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Many street signs in Israel are in three languages so that everyone can understand.

baruch, to random
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The Shpola Zeideh ("Grandfather from Shpola"), a disciple of the Maggid of Mezritch, was a man of intense fervor, far more than any of his colleagues - the Maggid's other disciples. When he visited the Alter Rebbe in Liadi in 5569 or 5570 (1809 or 1810) he related that when he was a child of three he saw the Baal Shem Tov. "He placed his holy hand on my heart and ever since I have felt warm."

— Hayom Yom, 14 Tevet

The Shpola Zeideh was a beloved figure enthusiastically spreading cheer to downtrodden Jews wherever he went. Most people in feudal Russia and Ukraine were serfs, but Jews were mostly forbidden from farming, so they would rent businesses such as inns from the nobles who owned the land. The nobles would put them in the dungeon if they failed to pay the rent, and the Shpola Zeideh made it his life's work to travel around redeeming these captives.

baruch, to random
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A number of online sellers on Amazon are offering garments bearing the controversial phrase "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," which several Jewish groups see as an antisemitic chant...

Suella Braverman, the U.K. home secretary with responsibility for policing, wrote on ...Twitter: "The slogan was taken up by Islamists, including Hamas, and remains a staple of antisemitic discourse. To hear it shouted in public causes alarm not just to Jews but to all decent people. Those who promote hate on Britain's streets should realise that our tolerance has limits."

https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-selling-river-sea-pro-palestinian-merchandise-1839416

baruch, to AncientHistory
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The Cairo Geniza is a collection of 400,000 documents found in a synagogue in Egypt that span the Middle-Eastern, North African, and Andalusian Jewish history between the 6th and 19th centuries CE, and comprise the largest and most diverse collection of medieval manuscripts in the world.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/6260245/jewish/18-Facts-About-the-Cairo-Geniza.htm

baruch, to Judaism
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Ask the rabbi: May a Non-Jew display a mezuzah in solidarity?

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/6270225/jewish/May-a-Non-Jew-Display-a-Mezuzah.htm

baruch, to random
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I no longer enjoy using Babka and plan to close my account soon.

baruch, to Israel
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There is a flood of news coverage of the war in Gaza and Israel, but one thing you probably haven't heard is that farmers in much of Israel were evacuated from their farms to escape the ongoing rocket barrage of Israeli civilian areas. Israeli farms will not get through this crisis without help. Donate to save a farm.
https://saveafarmfund.org
@mazeldon

baruch, to Israel
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