it’s also because Leonard COHEN (!) was Jewish and this is a quintessentially Jewish line, and changing it to that level of Annoying Certainty is stripping it of its Jewish meaning and imbuing it with that particularly American smug evangelical Christian attitude that makes me tired, so very tired
THAT IS EXACTLY WHY
I don’t think I’ve heard any cover artist sing my favorite verses
You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
um woah
I will always hit the reblog button so hard for Hallelujah but ESPECIALLY mentions of the elusive final verses which are just about my favorite lyrics ever. Why do people always omit the best part of the song??
In Yiddish
In Hebrew
In Ladino
Yeah, I wonder why the verses that reference specific Jewish mystical and chassidic concepts that aren’t readily understood by American “I love Jews, you know, Jesus was Jewish!” Christians never get any airtime. Funny that.
You say I took the name in vain I don’t even know the name But if I did, well really, what’s it to you? There’s a blaze of light In every word It doesn’t matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah
These are specifically about Chassidic Jewish theories of the holy language, how each letter and combination of letters in Hebrew contains the essence of the divine spark and if used correctly, can unlock or uncover the divine spark in the mundane material word. And of course, there are secret names of God which, when spoken by any ordinary human would kill them, but if you are worthy and holy and righteous can be used to perform miracles or even to behold the glory of God face-to-face. The words themselves have power. Orthodox Jews often won’t even pronounce the word “hallelujah” in it’s entirety in conversation, because the “yah” sound at the end is a True Name of God (there are hundreds, supposedly) and thus too holy to say outside of prayer.
None of this is to mention how David’s sin in sleeping with Batshevah (the subject of much of the song, with a brief deviation to Shimshon and Delilah) is considered the turning point in the Tanach that ultimately dooms the Davidic line at the cosmological level and thus dooms Jewish sovereignty and independence altogether. From a Christian perspective this led to Jesus, the King of Kings, and that’s all very well and good for them, but for the Jews, the Davidic line never returned and is the central tragedy of the total arc of the Torah. Like, our Bible doesn’t have a happy ending? And that’s what this song is about? There’s no Grace – you just have to sit with the sin and its consequence.
Of course, Cohen is referencing all of this ironically, and personalizing these very high-level religious concepts. Like the point of this song is that Cohen, the songwriter, is identifying with David, the psalmist, and identifying his own sins with David’s. The ache that you hear in this song is that the two thousand year exile that resulted from one wrong night of passion and Cohen feels that the pain he has caused to his lover is of equally monumental infamy. Basically, in a certain light, the whole of Psalms is a vain effort for David to atone for his sin and I think Cohen was writing this song in wonderment that David could eternally praise the God who would not forgive him and would force him and his people into exile. But he ultimately gets how you have to surrender to the inexorable force of God in the face of your own inadequacies and how to surrender is to worship and to worship is to praise – hence, Hallelujah. You can either do the right thing and worship God from the start, or you can fuck up, be punished, and thus be forced to beg for His forgiveness. It’s the terrible inevitability of praise that’s driving him mad.
Like honestly, I identify with this song so strongly as an off-the-derech Jew, I sometimes wonder what Christians can possibly hear in this song, as it speaks so specifically to the sadomasochistic relationship that a lapsed Jew has with their God. It’s such a different song from a Christian theological perspective it’s almost unrecognizable, man. This song continues to be a wonder of postmodern Jewish theology and sexuality from start to finish. Don’t let anyone give you any “Judeo-Christian” narishkeit. This is a Jewish song.
(Sorry about the wild tangent it’s just 2AM and I love this song so dang much, you guys.)
holy shit. woah.
This.
I … I am finding myself having some very powerful and inarticulate Feels about @dduane reblogging this whole thing with the tag #Young Wizards meta.
I still cant believe they designed the perfect pokemon right off the bat wow
just look at it. Its soft, cute AND everyones friend. It can be whatever you want it to be. The perfect size to hold and the perfect face to smooch. its got little toe beans and it loves you. Amazing.
narcissa malfoy was probably the most powerful occlumens in hogwarts history and nobody knew
she literally stood up to lord voldemort and lied that harry potter was dead and i don’t know about you but if i were an evil ruler i would probably want to triple-check that my nemesis was, you know, actually deceased
voldemort had actual doubts about snape
narcissa swans on by without a whisper, without a second glance
narcissa malfoy understood from a young age that she was meant to do only a few things: look pretty, say nothing, and marry well.
narcissa malfoy understood those rules, and she layered her mind with them.
look pretty. wear the most expensive robes. grandmother’s pearls. curl your hair every night. think only of clothes and dimples and the way your hair falls when you flutters you eyelashes at a boy.
say nothing. don’t speak when mother and father are screaming at each other. demurely look down as another boy asks you to dance. retreat into the reading room when your family friends, known death eaters and criminals, pay your parents a visit and speak in hushed voices over tea. think of pretty things.
marry well. marry into a family of your parents’ friends. bear children. wear pearls and look demure and think of nothing but pretty, pretty things, like the way your husband’s hair gleams in candlelight.
masters must learn the rules before they can break them. narcissa learned the rules so well that they wrapped around her; sank into her skin and her mind. they protect her from enemies. they conceal the quick, strategic plots ticking her brain into gear every moment of every day. they hide the calculation of each smile, each movement.
narcissa is so good, so perfect, that no one will ever know.
Not only was this one of the most badass moments of the books, but it was genuinely surprising without being some Random Shit Out Of Fucking Nowhere that some authors/scriptwriters think is all there is to being surprising/shocking.
Because it makes perfect sense. Of course Narcissa would turn on Voldemort without a second thought to protect her son. Not only because she’s his mother, but because that’s how Voldemort was defeated the first time around, and Voldemort cannot change or learn. 1980′s Voldemort was defeated because of a mother’s love, Lily’s sacrifice for Harry.
Lily was not considered important to Voldemort, only James and Harry were. Voldemort was even willing to spare her for Snape, if she didn’t put up a fight (which of course she did). To him, Lily was irrelevant, because she was a woman and Muggle-born. Voldemort underestimated her, and it cost him. So naturally he would do the same thing again in the 90′s, focusing on Harry and the prophecy, never considering the thing that defeated him before might do so again. He was wary of Lucius and Draco, but underestimated Narcissa and it lead directly to his defeat. And she KNEW he did, and used it to her advantage.
This short-sightedness is even reflected in his most ardent supporter Bellatrix, who was also killed by a furious mother protecting her child.
A mother’s love started the series, and a mother’s love ended it.
A mother’s love started the series, and a mother’s love ended it.
Fundamentalist fearmongering video: This dungeon “master” is given complete control and “players” must do whatever dark things are demanded of them.
Real DM: Please, just cross the river. You’ve all tried to seduce the catfish and it didn’t work. I’m begging you.
jack chick tract: your character is DEAD cindy, that means you have to die in real life!!!
real player: uhhh that’s another crit fail
real dm, head in hands: as you put your chopsticks up your nose and make walrus noises to amuse the peasants, you trip and fall, driving the chopsticks into your brain. you are killed instantly. congratulations, you’ve managed to die from a botched perform check.
real player, pumping fist in the air: YES!
@jumpingjacktrash I’m gonna need a elboration because this sounds amazing.
OH BOY HERE WE GO
so, this is not dnd specifically, it’s actually vampire the masquerade. but the players were playing it like it was dnd, right down to the “i waste ‘em with my crossbow!” attitude. the game master was a friend of mine who owned a game store, and ran a weekly game in the back room. his players were completely stuck and running in circles, and he was starting to get brain rot trying to deal with it. we’ll call him GM.
since he didn’t want to alienate his best paying customers by knocking their heads together, GM asked me if i’d be up to cameo one of my old characters in their game and set them straight.
“bring katie stone out of retirement for one night to slap some sense into these dumb motherfuckers,” was how he put it.
“i retired her because she was hilariously overpowered,” i reminded him. she was a vampire saint. she had more faith than the pope. she could turn vampires to ash with a prayer. “won’t they feel like i’m taking them to kiddie school?”
“you won’t have to fight or anything,” he said, poor optimistic soul. “just give them some advice, explain how the city’s power structure works, that kind of thing.”
i shrugged and agreed. i didn’t have anything better to do. besides, one of the players was a genuine friend of ours and was not, in fact, a dumb motherfucker for real, but only played one in social situations to mess with people, and i was looking forward to seeing what kind of crazy shit he’d pull. we’ll call him Original Prankster, or OP for short.
game starts. everyone settles in with their caffeinated beverages; Original Prankster adds vodka to his, not even bothering to do so under the table. GM asks them to introduce their characters for me, then has to ride herd on a solid 40 minutes of weapon specs and leather trenchcoats. basically every single one of them is cable, except OP, who’s deadpool. but, you know, vampires. they were supposed to go meet my character somewhere, but it becomes clear they’re going to go pick a fight in canadian tire or something instead of going to the meeting, so i just have her show up.
i start describing her. “she’s an average looking woman in a severe business suit, bags of charisma, looks like a news anchor or a homicide detective.”
“i seduce her,” one of the cables says.
“no you don’t,” i say firmly, because i was expecting this, “she’s not an npc, she’s my character and she is not –”
“i have appearance of 6!” another interrupts. “i’m the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen!”
“if you need to take a wank break at the image of a business skirt and sensible heels i can go out for a smoke, i remember what it was like to be twelve.” i am a bit annoyed; dude’s not twelve. he looks thirty.
OP grins. “i grab her booty,” he says, in the hillbilly drawl i damn well know is half faked.
GM: “her holy aura burns your hand, take one wound level.”
OP: “oh, you were ready for that.”
me: “you ain’t a mystery, OP.”
eventually they were all persuaded that any further attempts to grab or fondle the average looking businesswoman would result in horrific skin lesions, and ms stone finally got to make her speech about how she was here to keep them from shattering the city’s fragile peace, help them on their journey, etc. etc., but it ended up being a lot less ‘let me mentor you’ and a lot more ‘how do we get you to leave’ than i originally planned.
fast-forward through something like four hours of these brain heroes managing to get into a fight with basically everyone they encountered, and ms stone hauling them out by their ears, using her overwhelming power to keep them alive as they dived face-first into all the danger they could find. until, at long last, they reached the destination where they were supposed to goddamn meet stone in the first place.
this is the posh crypt of an ancient elder vampire. i’ve done my best to impart to them the idea that they are here to TALK NOT FIGHT and that they will get what they want if they can simply BE POLITE and TELL THE NICE MAN THE THING THEY CAME TO SAY.
you know what they fucking did instead.
now, here, i made a mistake. i thought things could still be salvaged somehow. i had stone try to keep the peace by weakening people’s powers and generally chilling everything down. but this weakened the ancient elder more than it weakened the leather trenchcoat club, and they managed to kill him, though they lost half the party in the process.
me: “ms stone shakes her head, seeming genuinely grieved about this. ‘i can’t help you now,’ she says to those still standing. ‘after this, the most i can give you is an hour to leave town. run.’ she clicks a button on her watch. the ticking seems loud in the –”
OP: “I kick her in the cooter.”
a single round later, katie stone stood alone in a room full of ashes, the brain heroes were stammering incredulously at GM, and OP literally fell off his chair laughing, to lie on the floor drinking vodka directly from the bottle.
girl culture is turning around every few feet when you’re walking alone to see if someone’s following u
Learn to peep through the corner of your eye so you’re not quite so obvious when you turn.
Putting in your earphones so hopefully no random men try to talk to/harass you but not actually playing music so you can listen for footsteps/other suspicious noises behind you.
feeling like someone is following you and subtly shifting whatever object you’re holding into a better grip so you can use it as a bludgeon if the person behind you tries anything
Being fucking terrified when street lamps give you more than one shadow
theclumsiestninja 