Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

THANK YOU, Charles!  Of course, if somebody is still needlessly 
overreactive, you could tell it about a middle-aged, overweight, 
caucasian, Irish-descent, unemployed biblical researcher and 
computer geek who can't drink any alcohol in the bar because of his 
ADD medication, and I promise I won't get offended ;-)

(I thought the joke was delightful.)

> 
> One of our list members with an e-mail address only, but whose name I can 
> not guess, has 
> written the following response to my posting: I find this anti-semitic joke 
> highly offensive and 
> ask the moderator to put a stop to it immediately. 
> Now I know there is no accounting for taste, but I would like to inform 
> "Bearpecs" that I am as 
> Jewish as chicken soup and a rabbi myself.I have sat through six or seven 
> days of dreary 
> exchanges about the name of God ranging from one extreme to the other. One 
> faction slogs 
> through rain, sleet and snow to "prove" what they began the debate already 
> believing--that the 
> "original" pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton was Ye-Ho-wa, soconvenient 
> for the Jehovah's 
> witnesses who find themselvescommited to thiscrazy mix of a Ketiv/Qere that 
> has absolutely no 
> warrant at all. All this gleaned from a book by a Frenchman, and everybody 
> knows the French 
> can't pronounce their own names correctly! The other faction is championed 
> by a lovely lady who 
> is a serious practicing Jew of a very traditional ilk, who believes that 
> only the high priest ever said 
> the name, but who has yet to explain from whom HE heard it or why one of 
> the Ten 
> Commandments would prohibit something that was never done anyway! All this 
> gleaned 
> fromQabbalah and a haredi view of "da toyra."
> One member, trying hard to be couteous, suggested we try humor. I posted my 
> attempt. If you 
> don't find it funny, so be it. As they say, "beauty is in the groin of the 
> beholder." I intended it to be 
> funny, I sent it as humor, and I still think it is funny. If you don't get 
> it, or if you don't think it is 
> funny, don't laugh.I live in the parish that borders the home parish of 
> David Duke. I know anti-
> semites. And I ain't one.
> In my opinion, what does not belong on a list ostensibly devoted to 
> classical Hebrew discussions 
> among specialists and teachers of the language are: [1] questions from 
> stark beginners; [2] 
> theological pleadings that always sound like the final refuge of the truly 
> desperate; [3] ad hominem 
> exchanges.
> Shalom from one Jew who looks in the mirror and knows God has a sense of 
> humor,
> Charles David Isbell
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Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do 
with it.
                  -Emerson