italy

I’m back from Rome, safe and sound, though not really so healthy—I seem to have contracted the flu somewhere over the Atlantic. Oh well, it’s given me some time to start the arduous task of selecting editing the 2500+ photos I took, amounting to about 3.7 gigabytes of data. I am going to put these up by theme, starting with today’s installment of amusing and interesting signs (modern, not ancient or papal) in and around Rome. More photos and trip happenings will be recounted and posted as my schedule permits.

It is really good to be back in a country where you can cross the street without fear of being run over by two dozen mopeds.

Once again I seem to have found myself in Vancouver International Airport (49 11 44 N 123 11 00 W), waiting to board the first of a series of flights that will take me from Vancouver to Rome. I am not taking my laptop on this trip, so I have been forced to pay for this hour of Internet time at one of these godawful kiosks scattered throughout the terminal. This kiosk consists of a computer with a display smaller than my laptop’s 13-inch screen, a bolted-down keyboard with a broken space bar, a trackpad located to the right (naturally) of the keyboard (judging by the distance between the keyboard and the trackpad, I would judge it probable that the designer of this kiosk had a right arm as long as the Trans-Canada Highway), no obvious way to make clicking motions or gestures with said trackpad, and a bare metal stool that makes the fabric-covered slabs of steel that Air Canada euphemistically calls ‘economy-class seats’ look downright luxurious by comparison. A few metres from me there is a gaggle of pre-teen girls with matching T-shirts loudly ordering coffee in heavily accented English from Starbucks while giggling and yapping even more loudly to one another in French, obviously thinking that nobody nearby can understand them. There’s still an hour before my flight boards, and I’ve run out of ‘useful’ things to do on the Internet that I’m now reduced to bored blogging. Sad.

At any rate, I’ll be more or less out of contact, unless by some miracle I manage to get some Internet access over the next week. I’ll be returning next weekend, hopefully with lots of good photos of Rome to spam all over this little corner of the Internet. So for now, ciao, and take care!

The famous Hanukkah hymn “Ma’oz Tzur”, or “Rock of Ages” in the best-known English version, is pretty much like any other hymn: thanks, God, because You did such great things for us by killing all our enemies, which is why we’re (a) still alive and (b) able to sing this song to you. Unfortunately, not that many people know how the actual text of the hymn translates into English, so I will translate some of the lyrics to Ma’oz Tzur here:

Innocuous enough, right, at least by the standards of some other hymns? Let’s skip down to the final verse—

ArtScroll helpfully provides you with the following comment:

This final stanza is generally regarded to be a later addition [about 1500] by a different author. The initial letters of the first three words for the acrostic חֲזַק, be strong. Since it contains a strong plea for Divine vengeance against Israel’s foes, this stanza was subject to much censorship by Christian authorities. Accordingly some siddurim have replaced certain stiches with others less offensive to the censors.

Whereas we, in our holy desire to remain as close to the original text as possible, have left in the original version of a forged last verse! Never mind that it’s bad poetry, or that it is genuinely offensive to anyone with modern sensibilities, or that after five previous verses of singing out the awful melody to the rest of Ma’oz Tzur you feel like giant cotton balls have been shoved down your ear canals. Look how extra-pious we are by leaving it in!

The Red One [what I have translated 'Edom' —S] refers to Esau/Edom, whose descendants brought the current exile. The seven shepherds (Micah 5:4) who will conquer Israel’s oppressors are David, Adam, Seth, Methusaleh, Abraham, Jacob, and Moses (Succah 52b).

That’s right—Isaac, Joseph, Solomon, Gideon, Ehud—you can all just go back home, because you’re clearly worthless. Come on in, Seth! Methuselah, you sure your 969-year-old self is up to this? What about your rib-cage, Adam? Okay, then, you can come too.

I guess what this reminds me most of is the last verse of ‘Il Canto degli Italiani’, the Italian national anthem. National anthems—especially older ones, like you would find in some parts of Europe—have this undeniable tendency to romanticise bloodthirstiness, especially against traditional enemies of the state. The last verse of the Italian anthem goes:

Now, of course, nobody sings this last verse of the Italian anthem anymore, but it’s still on the books. Many Jews, however, not knowing any better, do sing the last verse of Ma’oz Tzur, which praises more or less the exact same kinds of things. Ruthless destruction of one’s enemies is sanctioned because they’ve done wrong to you. Of course this offends our modern sensibilities, as well it should, but that’s not the point I want to make: the point is that when we can recognise that this is what’s going on, we should stop singing these kinds of hymns—or change them; it’s not as if they’re Torah revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai—instead of continuing with this nonsense.