Though I know it's supposed to show his deep spiritual side, I can't help instantly coming up with "Rabbi Blockhead." Does this make me a terrible person?
But wait, there's more. Tzvi's been writing about his favorite topic again, masturbation. To try to encourage all wayward Jews to repent during the six-week Shovavim period, when the Torah readings cover the Exodus section of the Torah. Tzvi says that scoffers should be careful about making fun of the Jewish tradition of treating Shovavim as a great time for working on sexual transgressions. In particular, he says porn surfers and folks who don't observe niddah should know that it's just a matter of time before their sins get unleashed on their innocent family members. (Truly, our God is an awesome God...)
For this reason, our Sages call out to us to return in repentance at this time of “Shovavim,” saying, “Shuvu banim shovavim,” (Jeremiah, 3:14) “Return you rebellious children.”Quite. However Tzvi's next move is truly awe-inspiring for its randomness. Tzvi now transfers the identity of the "children" from lost Jews to their lost seed. Um, gross.
Because semen contains myriads of living souls, when a person willfully transgresses, or errs in whatever manner, these souls, and the Holy Names of Hashem which they possess, are lost and compelled to wander painfully in an impure netherworld, unless they are rectified through the sincere t’shuva of the person who sinned. The best time for this repentance, to rescue these spiritual “children,” “banim shovavim,” from bondage, is the period of “Shovavim.”I don't want to picture what this particular rescue would look like. Presumably it would be called something like "Operation Sticky Carpet."
To wrap up this bizarre train of thought, Tzvi provides us with a delightfully brain-melting image: A (prayer?)-robot rescuing a lost sperm, complete with kamikaze-esque battle cry.
My God, why hast thou forsaken me?
2 comments:
Allow me to put your mind at ease. You are not a terrible person. If poking fun at the e-gedolim is wrong, then I don't want to be right.
Wait a second. If semen contains 1,000s of "living souls," wat happens to all the souls of the unlucky sprem cells that don't get a chance to fertilize and ovum? I mean, even when a married man and a married woman have 100% kosher sex, nearly all of the man's seed is "wasted." And not only that, halacha is quite explicit that husbands and wives all the sex they want for pleasure, even if there's no chance of making a child. Infertile partners can have sex, and post-meopausal women can have sex, too. Even the most frum allow this. So why is that different from masturbation, at least from the perspective of the souls stuck in the sperm?
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