From: "John Dale" <johnd-AT-northlink.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Apr 1997 23:34:11 -0700
Subject: HAB: (Fwd) Scriptural Exegisis/Comparative


Dear Ken, Friends,

	Here is another piece of humor. Perhaps it will give some 
of you a chuckle.

	John Dale


------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Fri, 11 Apr 1997 17:38:40 -0800 (GMT)
To:            banani-AT-ucla.edu
From:          Mike Furst <mibon-AT-mailhost.cinet.co.cn>
Subject:       Scriptural Exegisis/Comparative
Cc:            Irfan1-AT-umich.edu

 Thought you'd all find this interesting.

Mike

>>(attributions lost, if you know 'em post 'em)
>>
>>What would _x_ do upon traveling to work and seeing a STOP sign?
>>
>>1. A post modernist de constructs the sign (i.e., he knocks it over
>>   with his car), thus ending forever the tyranny of the north-south
>>   traffic over the east-west traffic.
>>
>>2. A Marxist sees a stop sign as an instrument of class conflict.
>>   He concludes that the bourgeoisie use the north-south road and
>>   obstruct the progress of the workers on the east-west road.
>>
>>3. A serious and educated Catholic believes that he cannot
>>   understand the stop sign apart from its interpretive community
>>   and their tradition. Observing that the interpretive community
>>   doesn't take it too seriously, he doesn't feel obligated to take
>>   it too seriously either.
>>
>>4. An average Catholic (or Orthodox or Coptic or Anglican or
>>   Methodist or Presbyterian or whatever) doesn't bother to read
>>   the sign but he'll stop if the car in front of him does.
>>
>>5. A fundamentalist, taking the text very literally, stops at the
>>   stop sign and then waits for it to tell him to go.
>>
>>6. A preacher might look up "STOP" in his lexicons of English and
>>   discover that it can mean either: 1) something which prevents motion,
>>   such as a plug for a drain, or a block of wood that prevents a door
>>   from closing;or 2) a location where a train or bus lets off
>>   passengers. The main point of his sermon the following Sunday on this
>>   text is: when you see a stop sign, it is a place where traffic is
>>   naturally clogged, so it is a good place to let off passengers from
>>   your car.
>>
>>7. An Orthodox Jew does one of two things: A) Take another route to
>>   work that doesn't have a stop sign so that he doesn't run the risk of
>>   disobeying the halachah, or B) Stop at the stop sign, say "Blessed
>>   art thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who hast given us thy
>>   commandment to stop," wait 3 seconds according to his watch, and then
>>   proceed.
>>
>>    Incidentally, the Talmud has the following comments on this passage:
>>    R[abbi] Meir says: He who doesn't stop shall not live long.
>>    R. Hillel says: Cursed is he who does not count to three before
>>    proceeding.
>>    R. Simon ben Yudah says: Why three? Because the Holy One,
>>    blessed be He, gave us the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.
>>    R. ben Isaac says: Because of the three patriarchs.
>>    R. Yehuda says:   Why bless the Lord at a stop sign? Because it says:
>>    "Be still, and know that I am God."
>>    R.Hezekiel says: When Jephthah returned from defeating the Ammonites,
>>    the Holy One, blessed be He, knew that a donkey would run out of the
>>    house and overtake his daughter; but Jephthah did not stop at the stop
>>    sign, and the donkey did not have time to come out. For this reason he
>>    saw his daughter first and lost her. Thus he was judged for his
>>    transgression at the stop sign.
>>    R. Gamaliel says: R. Hillel, when he was a baby, never spoke a word,
>>    though his parents tried to teach him by speaking and showing him the
>>    words on a scroll. One day his father was driving through town and
>>    did not stop at the sign. Young Hillel called out: "Stop, father!"
>>    In this way, he began reading and speaking at the same time. Thus it
>>    is written:  "Out of the mouth of babes." R. ben Jacob says: Where
>>    did the stop sign come from? Out of the sky, for it is written:
>>    "Forever, O Lord, your word is fixed in the heavens."
>>    R. ben Nathan says: When were stop signs created? On the fourth day,
>>    for it is written: "let them serve as signs."
>>    But R. Yehoshua says: ...    (continues for three more pages...)
>>
>>8. A Haredi ["ultra-Orthodox" "black hat" Jew] does the same thing as
>>   an Orthodox Jew, except that he waits 10 seconds instead of 3.  He
>>   also replaces his brake lights with 1000 watt searchlights and
>>   connects his horn so that it is activated whenever he touches the
>>   brake pedal.
>>
>>9. A Breslover Hasidic Jew sees the sign and makes his boddidus (a
>>   form of spontaneous personal prayer) saying: "Robono Shel Olam
>>   [Master of the Universe] -- here I am, traveling on the road in Your
>>   service, and I'm about to face who knows what danger at this
>>   intersection in my life. So please watch over me and help me to get
>>   through this stop sign safely." Then, "looking neither to left nor
>>   right" as Rebbe Nachman advises, he joyfully accepts the challenge,
>>   remains focused on his goal -- even if the car rolls backward for a
>>   moment -- then he hits the gas pedal and forges bravely forward,
>>   overcoming all obstacles which the yetzer hara [evil inclination]
>>   might put in his path.
>>
>>10. A Lubovitcher Hasidic Jew stops at the sign and reads it very
>>   carefully in the light of the Rebbe's teachings.  (In former times
>>   he would have used his cell phone to call Brooklyn and speak to the
>>   Rebbe personally for advice, but this is no longer possible, may the
>>   Rebbe rest in peace.)  Next, he gets out of the car and sets up a
>>   roadside mitzvah mobile [outreach booth], taking this opportunity to
>>   ask other Jewish drivers who stop at the sign whether or not they
>>   have put on tefillil today [male ritual] or whether they light
>>   Shabbos candles [female ritual].  Having now settled there, he
>>   steadfastly refuses to give up a single inch of the land he occupies
>>   until Moschiach comes.
>>
>>11. A Reform Jew sees the stop sign, and coasts up to it while
>>   contemplating the question "Do I personally feel commanded to stop?"
>>   During this internal process he edges into the intersection and is
>>   hit from behind by a car driven by a secular Jew who ignored the
>>   sign completely.
>>
>>12. A Conservative Jew reacts by calling his rabbi and asking him
>>   whether stopping at this sign is required by unanimous ruling of the
>>   Commission on Jewish Law or if there is a minority position. While
>>   waiting for the rabbi's answer he is ticketed by a policeman for
>>   obstructing traffic.
>>
>>13. A Reconstructionist Jew, seeing the stop sign, might say: First,
>>   this sign is part of our evolving civilization and therefore I must
>>   honor it and stop. On the other hand, since its origins are in the
>>   past, I must assert that "the past has a vote and not a veto," and
>>   therefore I must study the issue carefully and decide if the
>>   argument "to stop" is spiritually, intellectually and culturally
>>   compelling enough to convince me to stop. If yes, I will vote with
>>   the past. If not, I will veto it. Finally, is there any way that I
>>   can re-value or trans-value the stop sign's message for our own time?
>>
>>14. The Renewal-Movement-Jew meditates on whether the STOP sign
>>   applies in all kabbalistic Four Worlds [Body-Emotion-Mind-Spirit]
>>   or only in some of them, and if so which ones?  Must he stop
>>   feeling?  thinking? being? driving? Since he has stopped to breathe
>>   and meditate on this question, he is quite safe while he does so,
>>   barukh HaShem [Praise G-d].
>>
>>15. A scholar from the Jesus seminar concludes that the passage
>>   "STOP" undoubtedly was never uttered by Jesus himself, but belongs
>>   entirely to stage III of the Gospel tradition, when the church was
>>   first confronted by traffic in its parking lot.
>>
>>16. A NT scholar notices that there is no stop sign on Mark Street
>>   but there is one on Matthew and Luke streets, and concludes that
>>   the ones on Luke and Matthew streets are both copied from a sign
>>   on a completely hypothetical street called "Q". There is an excellent
>>   300-page discussion of speculations on the origin of these stop signs
>>   and the differences between the stop signs on Matthew and Luke
>>   street in the scholar's commentary on the passage. There is an
>>   unfortunate omission in the commentary, however: the author
>>   apparently forgot to explain what the text means.
>>
>>17. An OT scholar points out that there are a number of stylistic
>>   differences between the first and second half of the passage "STOP".
>>   For example, "ST" contains no enclosed areas and 5 line endings,
>>   whereas "OP" contains two enclosed areas and only one line
>>   termination. He concludes that the author for the second part is
>>   different from the author for the first part and probably lived
>>   hundreds of years later. Later scholars determine that the second
>>   half is itself actually written by two separate authors because of
>>   similar stylistic differences between the "O" and the "P".
>>
>>18. Another prominent OT scholar notes in his commentary that the
>>   stop sign would fit better into the context three streets back.
>>   (Unfortunately, he neglected to explain why in his commentary.)
>>   Clearly it was moved to its present location by a later redactor.
>>   He thus exegetes the intersection as though the stop sign were not
>>   there.
>>
>>19. Because of the difficulties in interpretation, another OT
>>   scholar amends the text, changing "T" to "H". "SHOP" is much easier
>>   to understand in context than "STOP" because of the multiplicity of
>>   stores in the area. The textual corruption probably occurred  because
>>   "SHOP" is so similar to "STOP" on the sign several streets back that
>>   it is a natural mistake for a scribe to make. Thus the sign should
>>    be interpreted to announce the existence of a shopping area.
>>
>>20. A feminist scholar notes that all commentary refers to "he" and
>>   concludes she is thus exempt, so she runs the sign and is killed.
>>
>>21. A radical feminist, observing what happened to the first feminist,
>>   concludes this is a misogynist plot to get all feminists killed by
>>   inciting them to run stop signs.  So she gets out of the car and
>>   stages a protest against the inherent sexism in all traffic signs.
>>
>>22. An observant Orthodox Jewish woman concludes that she is not
>>   allowed to observe the mitzvah [commandment] of stopping because she
>>   is niddah [menstruant].  This is a dilemma, because the stop sign is
>>   located on the way to the mikvah [ritual purification pool]. She
>>   refers the dilemma to all the Rabbinical scholars, who shrug.
>>
>>23. A feminist Jewish woman sees this as a sign from the Shekhinah
>>   [feminine aspect of G-d) that translates roughly "enough already..."
>>






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