#behold the lack of paragraph breaks and weep

[simkjrs]

No, no, don't apologize, that post was fantastic, the concepts are amazing, YES TO MINI IZUKA AND MINI SAIKI. Also, 'hey can you help me my friend got kinapped' is such a crazy phrase to say, but not more crazy that Saiki's whole life, I love all ideas you can tell us all about them. DO TELL US.

okay!! i feel like i now have two (2) “my hero saiki” crossovers to write: the one where saiki’s first encounter in the b/nha universe is accidentally teleporting into yuuei during the USJ incident and being mistaken for a villain, and the one where saiki visited the b/nha universe as a child. THERE’S JUST AN ABUNDANCE OF CROSSOVERS HERE, the hijinks all write themselves, saiki still has no luck in any of his endeavors but at least he still has his ungodly arsenal of questionably useful powers. 

ANYWAYS, as requested, here are all the shitty ideas that have been stubbornly spawning in my head despite all my efforts to the contrary: 

the one where izuku is talking with his mom about saiki, maybe allowing himself a moment of grief after all these long years. where did saiki disappear to, he laments. sometimes, he says, sometimes he wonders if saiki is still alive – if saiki has found a home, or a, a family – if saiki is happy, and if so, if saiki sometimes thinks of them —- he hears a whoosh. he turns. a familiar face sitting at the dinner table, stone-faced, but the glint of his glasses still manages to convey a sense of bewilderment. …tadaima, saiki says. izuku screams. izuku’s mom screams. saiki mentally contemplates whether or not having a tendency to scream when surprised is a useful and cathartic character trait, concludes it is not, but feels that sitting blank-faced at a table does not adequately express how much he doesn’t want to deal with this right now, either. maybe he should give this screaming thing a try.

izuku holds this against saiki forever and brings it up whenever possible. i’m impressed that you kept up with your heroics hobby all these years, saiki says. well, i had to occupy myself with SOMETHING while i thought you were DEAD, says izuku. 

oh, you have a brother? i didn’t know, that, deku! uraraka says. i would have told you sooner if a certain someone hadn’t DISAPPEARED for SEVEN YEARS, izuku says loudly. stop holding it against me. it’s not like i meant to, saiki thinks, annoyed, and goes to his room to sulk be alone. 

izuku: seven years ago this day, i lost someone very dear to me. saiki: quit telling everyone im deadizuku: sometimes i can still hear his voice

the villain!au crossover, where saiki returns to the b/nha universe seven years later only to find out that his friend has become a notorious villain. what the fuck, izuku. 

classic villain!deku edition: “don’t try and convince me to return to the right path!” so you acknowledge that you’re not on the right path. “the heroes are a corrupt institute. i won’t be like them. i’ll teach them a lesson.” you’re more corrupt than they are right now. 

izuku tries to pull off a crime. that’s illegal. saiki foils his plans and stares izuku down judgmentally from the rooftop or something 

saiki tails izuku and investigates the villain alliance. okay, he’s not letting this go on any longer. he destroys the villain alliance, drops off the villains in front of the police station, and drags izuku forcefully on a soul-searching roadtrip around the world or something. and by roadtrip, he means “teleporting to different locations as it suits his whims.” and by soul-searching, he mostly means making izuku gain some perspective. stop focusing on revenge plots, drink some coconut juice. whatever

villain!deku fugue state: “…sorry, i never knew anyone named saiki kusuo. don’t get in my way, please.” i.e. the one where izuku has been brainwashed or w/e is popular these days, and he doesn’t remember his family or saiki. saiki kidnaps forcibly teleports izuku to a psychologist’s office. the psychologist shouts in surprise. izuku tries to climb out the window. saiki grabs izuku’s shirt collar and points at izuku like he has memory problems. fix them please, 

noumu izuku xover: saiki is pissed and fucks shit up with the villain alliance. nice

The Villain!Izuku Comedy That We All Need But Don’t Deserve: at first saiki is kind of pissed and determined to drag izuku back onto the right path. then he’s just kind of confused. 

saiki, internally: …i leave for seven years, and izuku turns villainy into a celebrity occupation? (he is grudgingly impressed.) 

izuku is overjoyed to meet saiki! he isn’t sure who saiki is but HE’S GLAD TO MEET HIM ANYWAYS. izuku immediately ropes saiki into helping out with his schemes. saiki resists, valiantly. sort of. he succumbs to izuku’s persistent, cheerful insistence in the end. 

every time i tell myself “this au can’t get any more ridiculous than it already is” ideas like this happen, and i’m full of regret

the AU where saiki’s brother, kuusuke, meddles with saiki’s control devices; as a result, saiki accidentally catapults himself and his brother into the b/nha universe. now saiki will have to work with his brother to get them both back home. 

kuusuke: cant you… teleport us back home? kusuo: no. it takes three minutes before i can teleport again. shouldn’t you know this? havent you been looking for a way to beat me for 14 years? aren’t you a top cambridge student?

hijinks: breaking into high-security or Very Important locations to get the equipment & materials that kuusuke needs. this one is fun because a) it puts them on the heroes’ radar, and b) it puts them on the villains’ radar. kuusuke enjoys riling up and baiting both sides far too much. kusuo is upset

i like this idea is because kuusuke and kusuo have a bad relationship, so being forced to cooperate would be so INTERESTING for their character growth!!. AND it would… maybe… show them… that they care about each other (^: 

PLUS, IMAGINE THIS: kuusuke gets into serious trouble. kusuo is pissed off in a cold fury sort of way, and wreaks all sorts of hell in order to get kuusuke out. and kuusuke… well, kuusuke has never cared about anyones feelings for a single second in his life, but!! but maybe!!! this incident stirs up feelings other than competitive admiration and jealousy!!! this is literally like 99% of the reason i want to write this idea

kuusuke: my brother… really cares… about me…kusuo: like hell i do. i just need you to find a way for us to get back home.kuusuke: no need to be so tsundere, kusuo, 

SCENARIO: kusuo and kuusuke are meeting with the heroes for some reason. kusuo is mistrustful, wary, and wants to leave and have nothing to do with the heroes. kuusuke tells the heroes not to mind kusuo, he’s basically just a bristly cat. kusuo bristles, because he is NOT. fuck off kuusuke 

there’s just a really interesting dynamic that could come out of this, and it’s really good 

SAIKI KUSUO / OPM AU THAT NO ONE ASKED FOR: saiki somehow loses both his control devices, teleports to the OPM universe, accidentally destroys a large swath of land because he can’t control his powers. he’s frustrated, and he’s also frustrated with all the people showing up to attack him – and he’s so frustrated that he can’t control his power enough to defeat them without seriously hurting them!!! saitama shows up and is able to withstand saiki’s attacks. maybe he tries to fight saiki a little bit because,,, hey,,, he wants a good fight,,,,,, but then he’s like “….you’re just a kid??” and stops 

“hang on,” the bald man says, frowning and leaning forward slightly to inspect kusuo’s face. “aren’t you a little young to be destroying countries or whatever? you’re like, a kid.” i’m SEVENTEEN, thank you very much, saiki thinks resentfully. 

so i guess this is the one where saitama stops trying to fight saiki and starts teaching him how to control his powers or something? maybe saiki can finally sleep without worrying about destroying stuff in his sleep? 

this post is unbearably long 

[rabbirose]

Vayechi - Transcript of Podcast

Shalom and welcome to Shikul Da’at.  I’m Josh Rose.  This week we close out the book of genesis with Parashat Vayechi.  I want to quickly look back at some of the themes of the book of Genesisi to shed light on our Torah portion.  

Where does Genesis begin?  Of course, at the beginning: Bereishit bara elokim et ha-shamayim v’et ha’aretz.  There is only God, the creative force, and no other.  God’s presence shapes the chaos, creating beauty, order, the proliferation of life.  A harmony among all the parts of the created world.

God completes creation - and blesses it. 

and almost immediately the world goes wrong.  It is human beings who undo the harmony and order created by God. Adam and Eve - the eternal pair -  break they bond with God through deception. They are to suffer the pain of labor - in both senses of that word - and expulsion from Eden. 

What follows is a legacy of the undoing of God’s work. Their son Kayin murders his brother Hevel. Over generations the world is consumed by violence.  Then the flood. In the Noah story many hints in the text, which we can’t go into here, indicate that creation itself is being undone. 

By the time the end of the Noah story passes in chapter 9, with its mysteriosly shameful episode of drunkenness and a hint of sexual violation, we begin to see that family is a central focus of Bereishit. The family is the central narrative and moral unit in the book.  in each generation, though, we see family trauma and pain.  

But now the story changes fundamentally because we meet Avram.  This extraordinary historical figure is able to hear amidst the noise of ordinary life the voice of God, to discern a spiritual-moral order within the world.  What makes Avram worthy of his new name, Avraham, however, is that he also understands his place and the place of his spiritual descendents in realizing that spiritual-moral order, in manifesting the Divine dream of harmony and peace.  God has a true partner in creation, and establishes with Avaraham an ongoing relationship but more important, a brit, a covenant that binds God to Abraham’s descendents and binds them to God. Those descendents - you and me, and all who will eventually join that covenant, are to be blessed by God and are to make themselves a source of blessing to all the people of the world.  

And then real life intrudes on this beautiful vision.  Abraham’s son and grandson, Isaac and Jacob do indeed carry on this relationship with God. But the familial theme rises up continuously to disrupt their lives.  Again and again families are torn asunder by pain and division.  Isaac is tricked by his son Jacob, leading his other son Esau to want to kill Jacob.  Jacob is then deceived by his uncle Lavan into marrying the wrong woman, and is mistreated by him for years. Along the way interlopers and foreign leaders add to the complications.  By the time we are introduced to Abraham’s great grandchildren - Joseph and his brothers - the spectre of fratricide appears for the third time in Genesis.  

The progenitors of the Israelite tribes throw their brother Joseph in a pit intending to kill him. This initial familial murderous betrayal casts the family into exile. Finally in our portion, Vayechi, Jacob, all of his sons and their families and Joseph are together in Egypt.  

This book that began with God’s perfect cosmic harmony,  sustained on earth by those who are to build in the land of Israel a commnity of peace and blessing concludes with a deeply divided family living in exile.  

Descriptively, Vayechi is our story.  We live in a fractured world, wounded by our own family stories, or suffering the divisions of the broader human community.  We live in exile, far from a perfected world and far from our spiritual home. 

God begins creating with light.  The Torah indicates God’s own assessment of the work God saw.  God saw that it was good.  Rashi’s opening comment on our Torah portion talks about blindness.  Ours is a parashah satumah - a closed portion, which means simply that it does not begin with a line break, but rather right in the middle of the paragraph where the previous torah portion ended.  Rashi, citing a midrash says

י יעקב ויחי יעקב. לָמָּה פָּרָשָׁה זוֹ סְתוּמָה? לְפִי שֶׁכֵּיוָן שֶׁנִּפְטַר יַעֲקֹב אָבִינוּ נִסְתְּמוּ עֵינֵיהֶם וְלִבָּם שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל מִצָּרַת הַשִּׁעְבּוּד, שֶׁהִתְחִילוּ לְשַׁעְבְּדָם; (דָּבָר אַחֵר: שֶׁבִּקֵּשׁ לְגַלּוֹת אֶת הַקֵּץ לְבָנָיו, וְנִסְתַּם מִמֶּנּוּ. בִּבְ"רַ:)

Why is this (Sidra) closed? Because when jaocb died the eyes and the hearts of Israel were closed because of the suffering of slavery which they then began to impose upon them. 

And that’s not the only evidence of lack of light or absence of seeing. Jacob’s eyes, the Torah tell us are dim with age, a blindness that is accompanied by his own spiritual blindness.  When Jacob gathers his sons toward the end of his life, he says 

וַיִּקְרָ֥א יַעֲקֹ֖ב אֶל־בָּנָ֑יו וַיֹּ֗אמֶר הֵאָֽסְפוּ֙ וְאַגִּ֣ידָה לָכֶ֔ם אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר־יִקְרָ֥א אֶתְכֶ֖ם בְּאַחֲרִ֥ית הַיָּמִֽים׃

And Jacob called his sons and said, “Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come, or literally - at the end of days.

  But he doesn’t reveal what will befall them , leading the commentators to tell us that Divine vision had been removed from him.   Rashi, offering an alternative explanation for why the parashah is closed, says

  שֶׁבִּקֵּשׁ לְגַלּוֹת אֶת הַקֵּץ לְבָנָיו, וְנִסְתַּם מִמֶּנּוּ. בִּבְ"רַ: 

he wanted to reveal the ultimate end to his sons, but it was closed from him.  

 Between Berishit, beginning, and acharit ha-yamim, the final end, we behold only chaos and disappointment.

Over the course of this parashah, Jacob dies and the book closes with the passing of his favorite son, Joseph.  This book that started with the proliferation of life ends with death.  And we know that this hints only at more death to come.  In Exodus, when the Israelite babies are drowned in the River Nile, we know we have come as far as we can from Gan Eden, watered by the four Supernal Rivers that our Kabbalistic tradition tells us flowed with spiritual sustenance.

And yet.  Beneath the surface we begin to detect echoes of that initial Divine harmony, forces moving in the opposite direction, back to order and beauty.

Jacob gathers his sons together to bless them

וַיִּקְרָ֥א יַעֲקֹ֖ב אֶל־בָּנָ֑יו וַיֹּ֗אמֶר הֵאָֽסְפוּ֙ וְאַגִּ֣ידָה לָכֶ֔ם אֵ֛ת אֲשֶׁר־יִקְרָ֥א אֶתְכֶ֖ם בְּאַחֲרִ֥ית הַיָּמִֽים׃

And Jacob called his sons and said, “hey-as-fu Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come.

הִקָּבְצ֥וּ וְשִׁמְע֖וּ בְּנֵ֣י יַעֲקֹ֑ב וְשִׁמְע֖וּ אֶל־יִשְׂרָאֵ֥ל אֲבִיכֶֽם׃

he-kab-tzu Assemble and hearken, O sons of Jacob; Hearken to Israel your father:

Can we hear in this coming together, this assembly of  sons who in their travails have been physically and emotionally divided, an intimation of a fitting cosmic healing.  God creates a world by dilineating and separating - the verb l’havdil appears repeatefly in the creation story.   Perhaps in this drawing of his sons together in blessing, Jacob is mirroring the primal divine harmony.  Delineation, separation is the primary creative act.  This primary Divine act we reflect back through a life of mitzvah, which is so often based on the recognition of distinctions: holy from profane, kosher from not kosher.  

And Jaocb’s spiritual act resonates on the earthly plane. Upon the death of Jacob, Joseph’s brothers know he might harbor resentment that he could now unleash. They come to him and plead. He weeps and embraces them, assuring them of his love.     This book so defined by familial division and estrangement ends with what appears to be a true and beautiful healing. 

Let’s look closely at the father’s beautiful blessing which occupies such a prominent place in the Torah portion.  In fact Jacob’s blessing of his grandchildren and children is the focus of the first five aliyot of Vayechi.  After the blessing the Torah says

כָּל־אֵ֛לֶּה שִׁבְטֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל שְׁנֵ֣ים עָשָׂ֑ר וְ֠זֹאת אֲשֶׁר־דִּבֶּ֨ר לָהֶ֤ם אֲבִיהֶם֙ וַיְבָ֣רֶךְ אוֹתָ֔ם אִ֛ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֥ר כְּבִרְכָת֖וֹ בֵּרַ֥ךְ אֹתָֽם׃

All these were the tribes of Israel, twelve in number, and this is what their father said to them as he bade them farewell, addressing to each a parting word appropriate to him.

Jacob then instructs them take him up to bury him in the land of Israel, teaching us and his sons, that the covenant with God is still in place. This dream of a healed world inspired by commitment to God wil not die with the last patriarch. And then:

וַיְכַ֤ל יַעֲקֹב֙ לְצַוֺּ֣ת אֶת־בָּנָ֔יו וַיֶּאֱסֹ֥ף רַגְלָ֖יו אֶל־הַמִּטָּ֑ה וַיִּגְוַ֖ע וַיֵּאָ֥סֶף אֶל־עַמָּֽיו׃

Jacob completed instructing his sons, drew his feet into the bed and expired, and was gathered to his people.

This beautiful and euphemistic description of his death contains words that we might suggest resonate with the creation story.  When Jacob insructs his sons, לְצַוֺּ֣ת , we hear this special verb from which mitzvah comes.  Genesis is bookended also, then, by this word, which appears for the first time here: 

וַיְצַו֙ יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֔ים עַל־הָֽאָדָ֖ם לֵאמֹ֑ר מִכֹּ֥ל עֵֽץ־הַגָּ֖ן אָכֹ֥ל תֹּאכֵֽל׃

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.”

With this word, so central to the human-divine relationship, we are taken back at hte moment of Jaocb’s death to the first mention of death.  Does genesis close with the reminder - or the promise - that even in death we should be reminded of the eternality of the Divine promise?

The final sentence about Jacob’s final acts, begins with the word vay’chal.   The word means to complete and indicates the fulfillment of a project - it speaks to the beauty and fullness of Jacob’s life.  Where do we first encounter the word?  It appears twice in consecutive verses at the end of the creation story.

וַיְכֻלּ֛וּ הַשָּׁמַ֥יִם וְהָאָ֖רֶץ וְכָל־צְבָאָֽם׃

The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their array.

וַיְכַ֤ל אֱלֹהִים֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י מְלַאכְתּ֖וֹ אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשָׂ֑ה וַיִּשְׁבֹּת֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִ֔י מִכָּל־מְלַאכְתּ֖וֹ אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשָֽׂה׃

On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done.

And these words which we chant each Friday night before Kiddush conclude this way: 

vayavareich elokim et yom ha-shvi-i.  

God completes, vayachal, creation and seals it with a blesing. 

Jacob blesses his children and then, vaychal, his life is complete.  

With these tentative observations I don’t want to draw sweeping conclusions about the literary intent of the holy book of Bereishit.  But we should focus on the ways in which hurt and hope, pain and possibility and of course exile and redemption and woven together as Bereishit draws to a close.  Vayechi is too complex and magnificent for us to try to label is as a happy or sad ending to Genesis.  In the twists of this story we are to see all of the dangers and difficulties that await the Jewish people in exile, as well as the heavenly hope that instills in us the knowledge that redemption is possible.  Jacob’s life and his death reverberate with the the promise that in our very lives resonates the vision of God’s promise of a world of beauty and blessing. 

Have a great week and thank you so much for listening