juda the maccabi's girlfriend

I am on a mission to find goodness in my office life that is for the most part so wholly unstimulating. Currently i am being entertained by the never ending waves of extremely interesting people looking for money, meaning, and menorahs. weird phone calls of the day: 1. one gentleman kept me on the phone for an hour explaining to me that he predicted september 11th and has psychic visions, 2. one guy asked me out because he's looking to date a Jewish woman, and get this, i sound nice, 3. and now, my cousin is reminding me of the 'run in with the retard' as she calls it. in brief it involved an israelite and our copy machine.
oy. office life. experience has got some power. i have discovered a new found respect for the secretarial life.

Now that it's Chrismikah or Hankkuas, i just finished getting yelled at by a friend of mine, that if i was living during the time of the Maccabis i would have been killed with my fellow Hellenists. that's if of course, i wasn't first stoned to death for witchcraft.
thanks a lot hon, that's definitely one way to land a chanukah gift.

So what is Hellenism? And why am I being accused of being a Hellenist? In a nut shell, the Greeks, in their global conquest, spread the worship of Hellas [which is actually the way you say Greece in Greek in case you ever end up there], a culture [not philosophy] that worshipped the body and the mind intellect without the acknowledgment to a Higher Being. Everything was centered around once concept: Objectified Beauty.

Contrary to my accuser. I do not believe Judaism has no place for Beauty. In my simple reasoning it is a Creation, It Exists, ergo, It has a Reason. In fact, I think that this notion is one of the biggest misconceptions of our theological discourse. Being that i am currently employed in such an esteemed office, i have taken advantage of my environment and i talked to some of the brilliant rabbis coming in and out of my work space...

One suggested that i look at the article featured on Slate.com http://www.slate.com/id/10802/ [what a wackjob essay], another said that Channukah is now being promoted as a celebration of Civil War [the religious against the Reforming] interesting notions, all worth exploring. Another, my favorite, said that the miracle of Channukah never happened, it is simply a historical fact [like me, this rabbi is not religious, and thus makes the most sense]. Come to think of it I may keep this job for a while....

So what's Judaism's take on the Body? Before the Baal Shem Tov's time there were major ant-rolling festivals, snow freezing Olympics, and other poultice causing practices... today, for some reason Chabad prints no such manual, we don't promote such cataclysmic self-destructive behavior. What is it about finding Gd in the Beautiful? Can we practice Gdliness with the Body? Can observance be Artful?

To start with the basics: HELLO: RAMBAM!! And even before that, Bereishis. Gd created man in His Image. The Body is Holy. I maintain the position that finding Pleasure and Beauty with the Body, provided that they serve some higher purpose, is all part of the Divine Reason. You should like yourself. You should find pleasure in your being.
Still feel free to throw all the rocks you want, from Melbourne if so necessary...

The Maccabi's were fighting The Disassociation. The Removal of Gd from the Physical Body. Seems contrary, no? Not really. The problem was not with the Body per se, but the issue of the Body followed by a Period. They warred against the Cartesian Issue of [Doubtful] Duality: The Mind-Body Problem. If Gd is removed from the Body, who on earth are you pleasuring but yourself?? Not The Self, but mirrored 'yourself'. In that minor detail lies the reasoning behind mass scale civil war. Period.

Light can only function in its appreciation. Gdliness must have a vessel in order to serve its purpose. That vessel is the Body, it is the Objectified [as in tangibility] of Gdliness. We cannot sustain ourselves in free flowing light.... there can be no vision in the Blinding Light [tohu/tikun]. Light needs a placement in Something. A Menorah. A Candle. Your Soul. That's my take on Channukah, consecration [its etymological source] Gdliness with the Body.

i love Channukah. I've always had a weird crush on the Maccabees [one of the many inspirations for my ludicrious degree in anthropology]. power to the people, burn on, you lamplighters and maccabees of today.
now back to office work.