But today’s may be the best one yet. According to Lazer, not only do Jews believe in reincarnation, but dogs are the reincarnated spirits of slanderers:

Jews firmly believe in reincarnation. Reincarnation is designed to attain a correction of the soul and mend sins of former lives. For example, those who slander others and who speak idle gossip are usually reincarnated as dogs. We should try our best to fulfill G-d’s commandments and to avoid the need for further reincarnations at all costs.

There’s so much going on here I hardly know where to begin. Perhaps I’ll start with the “content” of this blog post. Yes, many Jews have historically believed in reincarnation. The Talmud speaks of gilgul neshamot, or “transmigrations of the soul”, and it is posited that souls migrate to new bodies after death to atone for sins committed in their former lives. Kabbalistic tradition makes much of this, especially in the Zohar, the writings of the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria), and Hasidic folk stories and traditions. Some people even believe it today, as we can see in the crazy ravings of a certain Internet nutjob who believes that trees contain souls in need of “correction”. Even an otherwise reasonable rabbi I know in California believes in reincarnation.

Apparently, Jews also believe that the souls of those who speak lashon ha-ra—gossip and slander—are reincarnated in canine form. Who knew?

Jewish belief in reincarnation (inasmuch as it can be called “Jewish”) has its traditional, pre-rabbinic origins in the nebulous concept of tehiyat ha-meitim, the resurrection of the dead that will be one of the defining features of the Messianic Age. But Jewish notions of post-death reward and punishment have always been very poorly defined: “heaven” and “hell” are not native Jewish concepts and do not translate very well into Jewish eschatology. This is why the traditional answer to the questions “What age will I be when I’m resurrected in the Messianic Age?” and “If I were to die by having my head chopped off, would I be resurrected without a head?” is “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Judaism is focussed on this world and what we do with our lives in it. In the age-old “works versus faith” debate, Judaism falls squarely on the side of works. A human being who does good deeds and does not believe in God is worth many times more than one who pays lip service to God and does not try to live up to his or her God’s ideas about human honour and dignity. God demands that we give charity to the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, strive to rid the world of anguish and strife. A Jew who does not do these things is not practicing Judaism.

If you speak slander or gossip—and who hasn’t?—the penalty is not reincarnation into another form (how you’re supposed to perform penance as a dog is beyond me, anyway). If you sin, you won’t be punished with eternal hellfire or damnation or anything like that. The penalty for those who create a worse world with their wrongdoing is to live in a worse world.

Lazer Brody, our friendly neighbourhood chassidic nut, informs us—complete with video—about an intriguing custom that is apparently Jewish: saying blessings over fruit trees that are blossoming in the springtime. According to Rabbi Lazer, this is a great mitzvah because

According to Kabbala, this blessing is deeply significant, and helps correct the soul that is reincarnated within the tree. That soul is forever beholding [sic] to the person that makes the blessing, for he or she has done a great favor in helping that soul attain its tikkun, or correction.

You can’t make this shit up. (Actually, I guess you can.) I am stunned. Souls being reincarnated in trees?! This is the kind of thing the Kabbalah Center would come up with, and then sell twigs to unsuspecting celebrities and Angelenos for $150 a pop.

If this were not a Jewish ritual, and a Jewish (sort of) spiritual justification, Jews like Rabbi Lazer would instantly associate it with barbaric and misguided animism or spirit-worship or idolatry, just like the Bible condemns cultic worship involving the asherah. But since this one is sui generis Jewish, or something, it’s totally kosher and Kabbalistic and a beautiful and important mitzvah and a great way to “correct” reincarnated tree-souls.

If my spirit ever has to get reincarnated into a tree, I hope it’s one of those awesome bristlecone pines that live forever and are basically indestructible. Actually, what with the pine beetle going around these days, maybe not…

Our Torah is sweeter than honey. Within it, you can find all the secrets of creation.

I’m going to share with you something that none of the math or geophysics professors in MIT or Cal Tech know, nor does anyone on the staff at NASA. Now hear this from your buddy Lazer:

I think there might be a reason they won’t tell you these things—but anyway, why make the facile assumption that nobody who works in science or engineering or mathematics is a Jew who takes this sort of stuff seriously?

Pi is the secret of creation. Kabbalah, our esoteric portion of Torah passed on to us by Rabbi Yitzchak Luria Ashkenazi (the famed “Arizal”) and his disciple Rabbi Chaim Vital, may their holy memories arouse mercy on us,

(Yes, he did actually write ‘arouse mercy on us’. I am not making this up.)

explains that Ain Sof, Hashem The Infinite, created the world by a process known as tzimtzum, or contraction, whereby Hashem had to designate a point in the middle of his Divine and all-encompassing light to make room for a physical universe. This process, super simplified, was done by hishtalshelut, a series of cocentric [sic] circles the correspond to each of the sefirot, the holy spheres that mainifest [sic] Hashem’s different attributes.

Okay, whatever. It’s the conclusion that our sage mathematician/kabbalist comes to immediately after this point that really blows my mind:

Therefore, nothing in creation is square. All of creation is round, from electrons and protons to the great galaxies.

Nothing is square? Everything is round? What about: squares, cubes, right angles, television sets, sofas, stereo speakers, pianos, and books (sorry, seforim), just to name a few things? Also, many galaxies have shapes other than circles. But if you’re intent on making a silly, poorly-informed point, I guess you can’t let little details like these stop you.

A magical number, the key to computing circles, diameters, and circumferences is Pi, or 3.14 with subsequent fractional digits to infinity.

The Holy Name that Hashem used and uses (for creation is renewed every single day) in the contraction process is שד”י, the Hebrew name Shaddai, which is made up of 3 letters, shin, dalet, and yud.

All Hebrew letters have a numerical value. Shin is 300, yud is 10, and dalet is 4. Together, the Holy Name of Shaddai equals 314. If we divide this number by 100, the number that signifies perfection - which only Hashem is - we get 3.14, or pi, the secret of creation.

All right, so if you add up the letters you get an approximation of pi times a hundred. So you have to divide by a hundred to get a meaningful result out of this. What’s the justification for doing this? You could come up with so many other than ‘it signifies perfection’. I will leave these as an exercise to the reader. But more important—and interestingly, from my point of view—is the fact that unless you believe in some form of the documentary hypothesis—which I presume Lazer does not—the name Shaddai leads you into all sorts of contradictions. For a terrific example, see Exodus 6.3 and Genesis 22:14, which seems to suggest that Abraham knew the name ‘Yahweh’ (translated as ‘the LORD’). Also, Shaddai seems to have been a Mesopotamian cult title of one of the Semitic chief gods El. For a useful point of comparison, see Psalm 82, which begins: ‘God (elohim) stands in the congregation of El‘ (god? El? could this mean the council of gods under El?). At any rate, this is quite a vexed issue, much more complicated that Lazer is making it.

However, these are but minor obstacles to the determined mind of our esteemed rabbi. If he wants to believe that pi is holy, mystical, and the secret to knowledge of creation, then by all means let him go ahead and believe it. The rest of us will keep on thinking that it’s pretty neat in its own right—or, if not, then at least an opportunity to hold a demonstration.

THERE WAS A MAN IN BORO PARK (BROOKLYN, NY) WHO WAS DIAGNOSED WITH PANCREATIC CANCER. HE ASKED FOR A FRUM DOCTOR, BUT HIS INSURANCE AFFORDED HIM WHAT THEY OFFERED JAPANESE DOCTOR. IT ENDED UP, THAT THIS DOCTOR WAS A GIFT FROM HEAVEN. THE DOCTOR WAS STRAIGHT WITH HIM AND TOLD HIM THAT THE MEDICAL PROFESSION COULD GIVE HIM 6 MONTHS OF LIFE, BUT IN HIS COUNTRY (JAPAN) THEY USED A PARTICULAR MUSHROOM WITH SUCCESS AND THAT HE COULD GIVE HIM SOME AND SHOW HIM HOW TO USE IT. 4 YEARS LATER HE IS THANK G-D DOING WELL. FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED, THE CURE IS BASED ON THE CONCEPT OF A PH BALANCED BODY, THERE IS THE OPINON THAT CANCER FEEDS IN AN ACID BASED BODY. THIS MUSHROOM IS VERY ALKALISING.

Amazing, isn’t it? If you only ‘balance’ the pH of your body, you can cure cancer! And guess what—doing this is, in fact, really easy, because all you have to do is eat this mushroom! There is a link to more information, helpfully provided, on a Hebrew-language website from Israel about the pseudo-medicine of reflexology. More nonsense can be found on a herbalism website, which again refers to the natural powers of this mushroom to balance your pH.

For his part, Lazer himself responds:

From what I understand from alternative-medical literature, cancer patients have too little L-Lactic acid (+) in their connective tissues. In theory, as long as L-Lactic acid (+) is predominantly present in tissue, cancer cannot develop. When there is a deficiency, the cellular respiration starts to fail and this leads to a build up of DL-Lactic acid (-) in the tissues.

Of course! The obvious problem, with cancer, is that they’re missing the right kind of acid in their connective tissues! Why did the medical establishment never think of this, and insist that they just go home and drink a tall glass of milk? (It could be mushroom milk, if you really want, I guess.) No need for all this expensive chemotherapy or anything debilitating. Besides, what do these doctors really know? All they have are fancy degrees from fancy medical schools. They don’t have the thousand-year traditional knowledge of Eastern medicine to back up their ’science’! (By the way, this particular orientalizing tradition among many Jews—especially among, but by no means limited to, Hadisim—is one worthy of a lengthier rant, but that’ll have to come at a later time.) Back to Lazer:

The Kombucha cultured fungus … is supposedly able to re-balance the blood pH and, in so doing, prevent disease conditions from occurring, and repair and relieve existing suffering. I need to learn more about this, but in the meanwhile, I sent out emails to all the Cancer patients who are in contact with me. This is certainly worth further investigation.

I don’t know anything about this subject, but I sent this nugget of information out to every cancer patient I know. This has all the trappings of an e-mail scam, doesn’t it? ‘I don’t know anything about Prince Omar, the deposed former president of Nigeria, but his story is just so compelling, I think I have to send it to everyone in my e-mail address book!’ Or, ‘I don’t know anything about these penile enlargement pills (or that they could be called “male enhancement supplements”), but the mere fact that someone somewhere says they work is enough to get me to forward it to my entire e-mail list!’ Or, ‘This eight-year-old girl who survived a catastrophic plane crash…’ you get the picture.

Seriously, how can seemingly intelligent people buy into this crap—and not only buy into it, but repost it without a second thought on their blogs, and more importantly, send it to all the cancer patients they know, thus proving, yet again, that (false) hope springs eternal? Pity the fool who buys into this miracle mushroom cure (and stops her chemo as a result), but no pity for the man who sells them the snake oil.

A big Beam blessing to Ruth from Crown Heights!

Just…no.

Talk to Hashem every single day in your own words, for no less than a half hour (preferably an hour), and spill your heart out to Him. Ask Hashem to help you overcome the lewd urges, which are nothing more than a stupid temptation fantasy from the “dark side”. This strategy completely disarms the Yetzer Hora (evil inclination).

Avoid any secular media, movies, TV, and even newspapers, and immerse yourself totally in kedusha [Sam: Hebrew for 'holiness'].

The same way that you don’t contemplate eating pork or cheeseburgers all day long, you don’t have to think about other women. This will be difficult for you at first, because your entire mission on this earth could very well be to lick the battle with homosexual or other lewd tendencies. [Sam: sic.]

Double-check yourself that your appearance outside the house is super-modest, and don’t try to attract anyone’s attention except your husband’s. For him, make yourself the most ravishing and appealing female in the world. If you don’t get back triple dividends on your investment, write me again and we’ll take it from there.

Be very careful about ritually washing your hands as soon as you open your eyes in the morning (”negel vasser“).

Rabbi Brody suggests that this should cure her of her homosexual urges within 40 days, and additionally suggests the recitation of several psalms, the motivations for some of which escape me (105? 150?). Two things upset me about this. First, none of these things, of course, are going to cure this poor woman from her obvious latent homosexuality. All that’s going to happen is that it’s going to get even more buried and only cause further mental torment. Time and time again, this is what happens with these ex-gay ’solutions’, particularly with the religious ones. Sublimating your homosexual urges into your newfound religious identity will only hurt in the long run.

What really irks me more, however, is the presumption with which Lazer Brody—a man with zero actual experience in human psychology, psychiatry, or medicine—dares to answer this question. His capacity as a rabbi should limit the scope of his expertise to spiritual matters, like ‘I’m having problems connecting with God’. Now, he and other believing Jews (and Christians and others, for that matter) maintain that this is a spiritual matter—the first thing he helpfully tells this woman is ‘Negative thoughts contaminate the soul’, and then goes on to laud her for bringing her problem to him, because ‘when you tell your problem to a rabbi that you trust, you in effect release the pressure of the problem (the lingering negative thought) on your soul, and create an opening for divine light to reach you’. What complete bullshit. This woman needs the assistance of a professional trained in psychological medicine, not a nutty Breslover rabbi who believes the solution to homosexuality is to stop watching television, recite Psalms, and make sure to wash your hands in the morning. If you don’t know the answer, there’s no shame in admitting it and referring the questioner instead to a person who does know. But if you’re an intellectually arrogant man with a god-based solution to everything, then this may well be beyond your capabilities.

If you go to the wrong source, you’re going to get the wrong answer. I just hope this woman doesn’t permanently damage herself by following Lazer Brody’s ‘advice’.