#at the same time i have been taking on other mitzvot which are also significant to maintaing a covenant with g-d

[shalom-iamcominghome]

There’s pros and cons of being a trans man but one huge pro is that we don’t have to do the traditional Brit which I’m so thankful for cause idk if I could do that at 22 if I had the cis male *parts* 💀

It feels like one big cheat code, in all honesty 😂

[queenofnothingkingoftheworld]

ok fuck i don't know if i'll remember everything or be able to articulate anything but i just saw Nope for the second time and this is a random incomplete list of observations/thoughts/interpretations from my second go at it. under the cut

Nahum 6:3 at the beginning is about the judgment cast on the city of Ninevah. my understanding/interpretation is that Hollywood = Ninevah

there's at least two mentions of the number 613? ("six minutes and thirteen seconds of havoc" and the first time jupe saw jean jacket was at 6:13 pm) i have very little knowledge of judaism/jewish commentaries but i intend to read up more on the significance of 613 in relation to mitzvot, the mishkan (tabernacle), and how in kabbalah every complete entity has 613 parts (edit: also 613 is a prime number!!)

one of my first thoughts about jean jacket is that it looks like a camera or a projector or lens, as well as an iris/eye, but also when it opens up it's very like. angelic? like what if jean jacket is meant to be some kind of divine entity

i noticed in the gordy scene when it shows the destroyed set and the cameras that the cameras film reels look like the faces of the alien costumes jupe designed (i'm assuming they're the reels? idk much about camera anatomy idk) so the alien costumes look like the body of a chimp with a head that looks like a reel of film

i didn't really notice the orange scorpion king crew sweatshirt that oj wears when they're trying to get the shot but like !!!!! jean jacket's movie!!!!!

they way jupe is sitting so eerily still when he's having a flash back to the gordy incident, makes me think of the perfectly upright perfectly still shoe. i still don't have a full thought on what exactly was up with the shoe but like. maybe it was just a random moment of order in a scene of chaos that jupe could focus on and that was what kind of protected him from gordy? he was being quiet and still and not making noise and it helped gordy calm down. but also, as others have said maybe it's a "bad miracle" this shoe that doesn't fall over and maybe jupe kind of interpreted as a sign that he's special or different somehow. he was "safe" from gordy and he was "safe" from jean jacket (or y'know. so he thought) and maybe felt he had some kind of connection with them that would allow him to "tame the beast" so to speak

also the horse named lucky was the only thing jean jacket didn't consume at jupe's show. and lucky survived at the end too

em's speech for the safety meeting at the beginning is word for word the same speech her father would give about their business which is why she gets it wrong when she says her "great great grandfather" because she's repeating what her father would have said. oj is clearly uncomfortable/not in his element trying to work with all the people on set and while em is more outgoing/upbeat she is also nervous and doesn't really know how to do this! like she and oj are so different but they're both struggling!

i don't recall the exact line but when the four of them are discussing how to get the shot oj says something about "something they can't erase" and like from the literal very beginning of film and motion pictures their family has been excluded and erased and left struggling and ignored by the rest of Hollywood but the haywood siblings plan to establish themselves and their family in a way that no one will be able to ignore and forget

the tmz guy's reflective helmet looks a lot like whatever that reflective mirror ball thing (idk what that was but you know the thing) was at the beginning that spooked lucky on the commercial set and i'm guessing that's partly why jean jacket went after him but also i was so deeply unsettled at how this guy was laying on the ground with probably a million broken bones and so much pain and sees this scary ass man eating ufo hovering over him and he's still just screaming at oj to get him his camera or at least take a picture of him and idk. just the way we have a constant need to document and record everything especially tragic/traumatizing things for the sake of like. entertainment. which is y'know the dominant theme but this scene in particular really gave me chills

i have so many more thoughts but i'm still ruminating. anyway i will literally never ever ever not be thinking about the line "what's a bad miracle?"

[dafpunk]

Yitro

6 February 2021

I love this parsha because of its namesake. Yitro—that is, Jethro—is my number-one favorite character in the entire Torah, and I don't think that's just DreamWorks SKG's smokin'-hot zaddy talking.

Start with his name. Shmot Rabbah, the great midrash, says that "Yitro" means "expand"; in one case, that he expanded the Torah. And that he was called Hobab when he was first introduced because of his great love—the root H-B-B meaning "love". Whenever he appears in the Torah, he spreads and expands love.

And this parshah won't stop talking about Yitro's name! Every time he's mentioned, he comes along with one of his epithets; he's never simply referred to by his name. And these two epithets are interesting: first, he's "kohein Mid'yan", the priest of Midian. But not any priest, a kohein, like the Israelite priests.

Second, he's "chotein Mosheh", Mosheh's father-in-law. This is the most frequent epithet, sometimes used without even Yitro's name. But it doesn't exactly mean "father-in-law"; in modern Hebrew, father-in-law is cham. Although we assume Yitro is that kind of relative to Moses, Ch-T-N is the same root as chatan, husband or bridegroom, and the root has to do with creating a familial covenant. It sounds to me like Yitro is a very special kind of relative to Mosheh and has a really important bond with him, not merely through Tzipporah, but from heart to heart.

In this parshah, Yitro does a few very important things:

He brings Tzipporah, Gershom, and Eliezer back to Moses after he "sent Tzipporah away",

He tells Mosheh to take a fucking break,

He explains to Mosheh the will of G-d, essentially superceding Moses as a prophet.

And all these things prepare the people of Israel for receiving the Torah from G-d on Mount Sinai, arguably the highest point in the history of the People of Israel, ever.

So what's the significance of the three things Yitro does?

Most importantly, Yitro, as a wise elder who's been in the struggle for a lot longer than Mosheh, schools him on his priorities and responsibilities. Thinking back to Bereishit, Avraham didn't have anyone to tell him about his responsibilities, and he wouldn't even listen to other prophets like Avimelech, so Avraham ended up a self-serving, egotistical megalomaniac. Yitro—and it can be inferred, the Holy One of Blessing—does not want to see that happen again with Mosheh.

Mosheh is also clearly in need of a father figure, a chotein. We learn from the Talmud in Sotah 12a that Amram was a leader in Israel, but he broke under stress. When he learned that Pharoah intended to kill all of the newborn male Israelites, he threw in the towel, and if it hadn't been for Miryam, that would have been the end of the Jewish people.

On the other hand, my own father likes to lean into his persona of the Asian Immigrant Dad (his words, not mine!) He takes it to mean that if you want something, you have to work hard for it, making it your single-minded focus until you achieve the results you want.

But in reality, we don't need either of these extreme solutions to weather life's storms, and Yitro arrives with Tzipporah to teach Mosheh a thing or two. The first thing he taught him is that one's responsibility to G-d does not come before one's responsibility to family. Rashi explains that Mosheh had divorced Tzipporah when Aharon disparaged her as they came to Egypt. In essence, Mosheh despaired and pulled an Amram: oh, things are hard in Egypt? Well, Tzipporah might as well go home and I'll disavow her. Here ends the line of Mosheh.

And in fact, Yitro comes to Mosheh saying "I... am coming to you with your wife and her two sons"—not yours, hers. But they are his, too, and he has a responsibility towards them. Likewise, we all have a responsibility to care for the one's we're bonded to, even if work gets tough. Even if you’re literally Moses.

The second thing Yitro teaches Mosheh is to work smart, not hard. When Yitro saw Moses pulling absurd hours, being out of the house from morning until evening, Yitro pointed out that this was no way to live, and no way to lead; an easy path to instant burnout. He says, “ki-chaveid mim’cha hadavar, lo-tuchal asohu l’vadecha”: “the word is heavy on you, you can’t do it alone and succeed.” Yitro’s not insulting his son-in-law. He’s just stating a fact: you can’t do it alone and succeed.

The final thing Yitro does, which I find the most interesting, is that he speaks for G-d. Like Avimelech, who gets an angelic visit, the Holy One of Blessing has Yitro speak from his divinity. Even before the Torah is given, Yitro knows the mitzvot, saying that G-d commands Mosheh to delegate authority.

At this point, Yitro has just recently accepted G-d as the most powerful. As in, minutes or perhaps hours earlier. But this story teaches us that there is divinity and conscience in every human being, Jewish or otherwise, and we all innately know what the Holy One of Blessing commands even if we can’t fully express it. So Yitro teaches Mosheh another lesson: even if we today venerate Mosheh as our great teacher, he’s nothing without the ones who taught him.