in extremis.

In college I took a seminar on the Holocaust: I majored in computer science, but it was a liberal arts college which I'd chosen for its theater department, and its computer science department turned out be tiny. Senior year left me lots of credits for "Oh, That Looks Interesting." (I took Racquetball!)

The lecturer was a cantankerous guy in his 60s, with a loud speaking voice and a moderate New York City accent. I liked him, on balance, but I don't actually know if he had some kind of hidden soft side, nor could I tell if he was crotchety from studying the Holocaust, or if that's just how he was. He ranted at us a lot, repeatedly disappointed with the quality of our educations up to that point.

"And who was the central figure of Italian reunification?"
[120 undergraduates sit in stony silence, because who the hell studied Italian reunification?]
"Come on, you refugees from social studies class!" 
[*crickets*]
"Garibaldi!" 

(Did you know that? I didn't know that. I'd never heard of him.)

He really wanted us to learn—since the Holocaust, like, you know, matters—and he worked pretty hard at it.

One day he was talking about one of the Polish ghettos, about how they'd been reduced to eating horse meat, even though it's not kosher. He told us about the idea of pikuach nefesh, which he called "the saving of a life": circumstances where the value of human life outweighs the value of observing Jewish law. It was better that they should eat non-kosher meat than that they should starve.

The same concept arises in other cultural contexts, but I've always really liked that Judaism has a pithy term for it.

It's worth thinking about what you might be willing to do, to save a life.

Happy Hanukkah

The Yeshiva University Maccabeats originally got famous with a video called "Candlelight":


This is actually an arrangement by Mike Tompkins, covering a pop-dance song by Taio Cruz called "Dynamite":



That song neatly articulates a sort of "we're going to go someplace, and the place will be cool because we are there" attitude that I can't say I really understand, but we'll save that for later. Regardless, even a quick glance at his other videos shows that Tompkins is quite a professional.

I find myself really touched by Matisyahu's "Miracle," so I've been listening to more of his stuff on YouTube. This is "King Without A Crown" on Letterman in 2006; it shows both how very talented he is, and why I loathe that guitarist:



Here's the music video for "Miracle," which is just...weird.



Apparently he's a really good ice skater? He wrote the song so kids would have a Hanukkah song that actually talked about the meaning of the holiday, but the narrative of the video is just shy of comprehensible.

And finally, one of the awesome catchy ones, with a pretty start:



One cool thing about Matisyahu is that he's just this normal guy who liked reggae and found his way to Orthodox Judaism. As I was looking him up, I found that just last week he shaved his beard:

At the break of day I look for you at sunrise When the tide comes in I lose my disguiseyfrog.com/mng3ocj yfrog.com/mgj7ezhj

-- Matisyahu (@matisyahu) December 13, 2011

He looks like hell, despite being a few years younger than me. Life as a touring musician is pretty hard, but who knows. He's still Orthodox, and I'm glad he's finding his way.