text:
The skeptic is the person who doubts there is a God. The standard dictionary definition is quite revealing when it describes a skeptic as one who holds to "the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain and who has doubts concerning basic religious principles." Notice that the skeptic does not claim knowledge of God's existence is unattainable (as in agnosticism), but only "uncertain." However, the skeptic does not stop at mere "uncertainty." In fact, skepticism "...confidently challenges not merely religious or metaphysical knowledge but all knowledge claims that venture beyond immediate experience" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1997, 26:569, emp. added). The key words here are "immediate experience."
Translated into common parlance, this simply means that the skeptic is not prepared to accept anything that cannot be verified empirically (viz., via the scientific method). Corliss Lamont, famous twentieth-century skeptic and humanist, wrote:
The development, over the past four centuries, of a universally reliable method for attaining knowledge is a far more important achievement on the part of science than its discovery of any single truth. For once men acquire a thoroughly dependable method of truth-seeking, a method that can be applied to every sphere of human life and by anyone who faithfully conforms to certain directives, then they have as a permanent possession an instrument of infinite power that will serve them as long as mankind endures. Scientific method is such an instrument (1949, pp. 236-237, emp. in orig.)
Paul Kurtz, another well-known skeptic and former editor of The Humanist (official organ of the American Humanist Association), put it like this:
To adopt such a scientific approach unreservedly is to accept as ultimate in all matters of fact and real existence the appeal to the evidence of experience alone; a court subordinate to no higher authority, to be overridden by no prejudice however comfortable (1973, p. 109, emp. added).
Chet Raymo, in his book, Skeptics and True Believers, explained the dichotomy that exists between "Skeptics" and "True Believers" (capital letters are used throughout his book). Raymo, professor of physics and astronomy at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, has written a weekly column on science for the Boston Globe for more than a dozen years and was reared as a Roman Catholic. He began his book by suggesting that Skeptics and True Believers operate by different "made-up maps of the world." In chapter one he stated:
We cannot live without some sorts of make-believe in our lives. Without made-up maps of the world, life is a blooming, buzzing confusion. Some elements of our mental maps (Santa Claus...) satisfy emotional or aesthetic inner needs; other elements of our mental maps (hot stove, nuclear-powered stars) satisfy intellectual curiosity about the world out there. We get in trouble when the two kinds of maps are confused, when we objectify elements of make-believe solely on the basis of inner need.
The True Believer retains in adulthood an absolute faith in some forms of empirically unverifiable make-believe (such as astrology or the existence of immortal souls), whereas the Skeptic keeps a wary eye on firmly established facts (such as atoms). Both Skeptic and True Believer use made-up maps of the world... (1998, pp. 13-14, emp. in orig.).
Raymo then went on to ask:
Is one map as good as any other? Since all knowledge is constructed, can the choice between two contradictory maps...be a matter of personal or political expediency? Not unless we are willing to erect partitions between what we know to be true on the basis of unambiguous, reproducible evidence and what we merely wish to be true. Apparently, many of us are willing to do just that (1998, p. 14, emp. added).
With his strict dichotomy between the Skeptic (a person who knows about such things as atoms and nuclear-powered stars—"on the basis of unambiguous, reproducible evidence") and the True Believer (a person who believes in such things as Santa Claus, astrology, and an immortal soul—in spite of the evidence) firmly in place, Raymo then spent the remainder of his book laying out the Skeptic's case against: (a) the existence of God; (b) the Genesis account of creation; (c) the occurrence of biblical miracles; (d) etc. Eventually, however, he was forced to admit:
The forces that nudge us toward True Belief are pervasive and well-nigh irresistible. Supernatural faith systems provide a degree of emotional security that skepticism cannot provide. Who among us would not prefer that there exists a divine parent who has our best interest at heart? Who among us would not prefer to believe that we will live forever? Skepticism, on the other hand, offers only uncertainty and doubt.... Science cannot rule out heaven and hell because they are beyond the reach of empirical investigation (1998, p. 5,77, emp. in orig.).
Thus, in the end the skeptic does not say he cannot know that God exists. Rather, he says he doubts that God exists because He cannot be seen, felt, measured, weighed, or probed by the scientific method. Thirty-four years before Chet Raymo wrote about "Skeptics and True Believers," George G. Simpson, the late evolutionist of Harvard, wrote: "It is inherent in any definition of science that statements that cannot be checked by observation are not really saying anything..." (1964, p. 769). Simply put, the point is this: If science cannot deal with something, that "something" either does not exist (worst-case scenario) or is completely unimportant (best-case scenario). Welcome to the make-believe world of the skeptic in which science reigns supreme, and a cavalier attitude toward all things non-empirical rules the day.
But what about those concepts that, although non-empirical and therefore unobservable via the scientific method, nevertheless are recognized to exist, and are admitted to be of critical importance to the entire human race—concepts like love, sorrow, joy, altruism, etc.? Arlie Hoover accurately assessed the situation in which the skeptic finds himself in regard to the existence of such items when he wrote:
Why does the scientific method reject subjective factors, emotions, feelings? Simply because it is not convenient! Because the method will not allow you to deal with the immense complexity of reality. The scientist, therefore, selects from the whole of experience only those elements that can be weighed, measured, numbered, or which lend themselves to mathematical treatment....
This is a fallacy we call Reductionism. You commit the Reductive Fallacy when you select a portion of a complex entity and say the whole is merely that portion. You do this when you say things like: love is nothing but sex, man is just an animal, music is nothing but sound waves, art is nothing but color.... When it gets down to the real serious questions of life—origin, purpose, destiny, meaning, morality—science is silent....
If science can't handle morality, aesthetics, and religion that only proves that the scientific method was reductive in the first place. Sir Arthur Eddington once used a famous analogy to illustrate this reductionism. He told of a fisherman who concluded from his fishing experiences with a certain net that "no creature of the sea is less than two inches long." Now this disturbed many of his colleagues and they demurred, pointing out that many sea creatures are under two inches and they just slipped through the two-inch holes in the net. But the ichthyologist was unmoved: "What my net can't catch ain't fish," he pontificated, and then he scornfully accused his critics of having pre-scientific, medieval, metaphysical prejudices.
Scientific reductionism or "Scientism"—as it is often called—is similar to this fisherman with the special net. Since the strict empirical scientist can't "catch" or "grasp" such qualitative things like freedom, morality, aesthetics, mind, and God, he concludes that they don't exist. But they have just slipped through his net. They have been slipping through his net all the way from Democritus to B.F. Skinner to Carl Sagan (1981, p. 6, emp. in orig.).
In speaking of skepticism and its offspring of humanism, Sir Julian Huxley wrote: "It will have nothing to do with absolutes, including absolute truth, absolute morality, absolute perfection and absolute authority" (1964, pp. 73-74, emp. added). To that list, one might add absolute joy, absolute love, absolute freedom, absolute peace, etc. The skeptic has paid a high price for his scientism—the rejection and abandonment of some of the human race's most important, valuable, worthwhile, and cherished, concepts. Why? In order to be able to say: I doubt that God exists!
The infidel is the person who not only refuses to believe in God himself, but also is intolerant of, and actively opposed to, those who do. A study of human history provides a veritable plethora of men and women who made quite a name for themselves via their public display of infidelity. In the third century A.D., for example, Porphyry wrote a fifteen-volume series titled Against Christians, in which he sought to lay bare alleged contradictions between the Old and New Testaments, and to document how the apostles had contradicted themselves. He excoriated the book of Daniel, and charged Jesus with equivocation and inconsistency. He was recognized widely as one of the most celebrated enemies of God the world ever has known. McClintock and Strong have suggested that he "...became the most determined of heathen polemics the world ever beheld or Christianity ever encountered" (8:422).
Another infidel of the ancient past whose name is associated with vitriolic opposition to God was the Frenchman Voltaire. Beginning in 1765, he attacked Christianity with viciousness and vigor. He began with what today would be styled "higher criticism," by which he brought into question the authenticity and reliability of the Bible. He then alleged chronological contradictions in the narratives of the Old Testament. He challenged as incorrect many of the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, and he stoutly denied any such things as miracles and the efficacy of prayer. He once boasted: "It took 12 men to originate the Christian religion, but it will take but one to eliminate it. Within fifty years from now the only Bible will be in museums" (as quoted in Key, 1982, p. 2). [Interestingly, not long after his death, the Geneva Bible Society purchased Voltaire's house and used his printing presses to print French New Testaments.]
David Hume, born in 1711 in Scotland, attacked the idea of the immortality of the soul and placed the origin of religion on par with elves and fairies. But he is most famous for his essay, "Of Miracles," which was tucked away in his work, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1748. The essay itself consisted of scarcely more than 20 pages, but concluded that from what we know about the laws of nature a miracle simply cannot occur. The treatise went on to suggest that historical testimony regarding miracles is specious, and never could be strong enough to override scientific considerations. For Hume, there was no evidence strong enough to prove that miracles actually had taken place. His attack upon biblical miracles had serious consequences upon religion generally, and Christianity specifically. Even today many refuse to believe in God because of Hume's arguments.
In more recent times, one of the most vicious attacks upon God, Christ, and the Bible was spearheaded by Robert Ingersoll. Born in Dresden, New York in 1833, he set up his law practice in Peoria, Illinois in 1858, and eventually was appointed as that state's Attorney General. Madalyn Murray O'Hair, while still director of American Atheists in Austin, Texas, once characterized Ingersoll as "...a superb egotist. And, he engaged in more than one drunken public brawl.... Not withstanding all of the anomalies of his character, he was magnificent when he did get going on either religion or the church..." (1983, p. vi). In The Atheist Syndrome, John Koster has suggested that "what he hated was organized religion" (1989, p. 123). Shortly after Ingersoll went on the lecture circuit around 1877, he began to include in his repertoire such topics as "Heretics and Heresies" and "Ghosts"—both of which were undisguised attacks upon religion generally, and Christianity specifically. By 1878, he had expanded his lectures to include "Hell" and "Some Mistakes of Moses," both of which were favorites of atheists of his day. He died in 1899, having established his reputation both as an atheist and an influential infidel.
John Dewey was born in Vermont in 1859. He completed a doctorate at Johns Hopkins, and in 1884 began teaching at the University of Michigan. In 1894, he was appointed chairman of the department of philosophy, psychology, and education at the University of Chicago. In 1904, he left Chicago and moved to Columbia University, where he remained until his retirement in 1930. More than any other individual before or since, Dewey's views have altered American educational processes. Durant wrote: "...there is hardly a school in America that has not felt his influence" (1961, p. 390). Why did he have such an impact? Durant went on to explain:
What separates Dewey is the undisguised completeness with which he accepts the evolution theory. Mind as well as body is to him an organ evolved, in the struggle for existence, from lower forms. His starting point in every field is Darwinian.... Things are to be explained, then, not by supernatural causation, but by their place and function in the environment. Dewey is frankly naturalistic... (1961, p. 391).
Dewey was a prolific writer, and eventually authored A Common Faith in which he discussed religion (and in which his infidelity was brought into full view). He made it clear that "he wished at all costs to be scientific; for him the processes of science are the most obvious and the most successful methods of knowing. Therefore if science neglects something, the something is nothing" (Clark, 1957, p. 519). Because he viewed religion as "unscientific," he therefore considered it to be "nothing," which was why he vehemently opposed religion of any kind and insisted upon the teaching of organic evolution as fact, not theory. In his writings he stressed that "moral laws" were neither absolute nor inviolate and unabashedly advocated situation ethics. Dewey died in 1952, having altered forever the landscape of American education and having ensured his reputation as one of the chief infidels of the twentieth century. Had he lived a few years longer, he would have seen his ideas on the naturalistic origin and basis of all things take hold in a way that perhaps even he never dreamed.
Madalyn Murray O'Hair probably has been the most famous atheist/infidel in America for the past three-and-a-half decades. Her public saga began in 1963 when a suit to remove prayer from public schools was presented before the United States Supreme Court. Although the suit (in which Mrs. O'Hair was only a secondary litigant) originally had been filed in the name of Philadelphia Unitarian, Ed Schempp, she took over the battle and ultimately was victorious in the landmark decision of Murray v. Curlett. A writer in Time magazine has described her as:
...a heavy woman with a strong voice and a jaw who even in repose resembled, as author Lawrence Wright once observed, "a bowling ball looking for new pins to scatter." She was an Army veteran and a law-school graduate and a big talker. Most important, she was an atheist.... "I love a good fight," she said. "I guess fighting God and God's spokesmen is sort of the ultimate, isn't it?" (Van Biema, 1997, pp. 56,57).
She was the star of the first episode of Phil Donahue's television talk show. She filed lawsuits at what one journalist called "a near pathological level of pugnacity" for 32 years (Van Biema, 1997, p. 57). And once, while watching a female orangutan on television, she quipped, "The Virgin just made another appearance" (as quoted in Van Biema, p. 57).
In 1965, having worn out her welcome with state and local authorities in Maryland and Hawaii, she settled in Austin, Texas and formed the Society of Separationists, later adding the Atheist Centre in America and several other satellite groups. In the 1980s, she enjoyed a heyday as she ruled over her pet project that came to be known simply as "American Atheists," from which she published her pratings against God via books, posters, and bumper stickers (e.g., "Apes Evolved From Creationists"). She would debate anyone, anywhere, anytime on the existence of God and the "atrocities" of organized religion.
In fact, in the late 1970s, while serving as a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University, I attended a debate she conducted with Bob Harrington, a denominational preacher from New Orleans referred to as "the chaplain of Bourbon Street." Mrs. O'Hair was (and I say this only from observation as a member of the audience, and not in any derogatory sense) unkempt, haggard, slovenly, and bitter. During the course of the debate, she cursed wildly (frequently taking God's name in vain), belittled the audience for its "obvious" lack of intelligence, and mocked her opponent. She looked for, and seized, every possible opportunity to berate God and anyone who was, in her considered opinion, "stupid enough" to believe in Him. Little wonder that in 1964 Life magazine had headlined her as "the most hated woman in America." Bruce Lockerbie wrote regarding Mrs. O'Hair:
When we begin to speak of O'Hair and others like her, we turn directly into the face of aggressively militant disbelief. Here is no lady-like apologist, no grandmotherly disputant; for O'Hair, the cause is nothing short of all-out war (1998, p. 231).
But suddenly, without warning, she disappeared—vanished without a trace. On August 28, 1995 workers at the American Atheists building came to work, only to find a note taped to the front door that read: "We've been called out on an emergency basis, and we'll call you when we get back." But she (along with her son Jon and his daughter Robin who disappeared with her) has not called, and she has not been back. Curiously, about the same time over $600,000 turned up missing from the treasury of American Atheists. In 1995, tax forms submitted by the United Secularists of America (one of American Atheists' satellite groups) documented a $612,000 decrease in net assets and admitted:
The $612,000...represents the value of the United Secularists of America's assets believed to be in the possession of Jon Murray, former Secretary. The whereabouts of Jon Murray and these assets have not been known since September 1995 and is not known to the organization at this time (as quoted in Van Biema, 1997, p. 59).
[In April 1999, Ron Barrier, national spokesman for American Atheists, announced that the group was moving its headquarters from Austin, Texas to Cranford, New Jersey, stating that "the Northeast is much more progressive than the South..." (Montgomery Advertiser, 1999, 3-D). On Sunday, April 4, 1999 a dedication ceremony was held for the new offices in Cranford. Approximately two years later, law enforcement authorities in Texas announced that they had uncovered the buried, dismembered bodies of Mrs. O'Hair, her son Jon, and his daughter Robin, all three of whom apparently had been murdered by one of Mrs. O'Hair's employees.]
It can be said without fear of contradiction that "the most hated woman in America"—who had made it her life's goal to oppose God—did not live up to anyone's expectations, but undeniably lived down to the level of her self-professed atheism. The history of infidelity, only a brief overview of which I have examined, documents all too well that she has not been alone. In his novel, The Brothers Karamazov, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky had one of his characters, Ivan, comment that if there is no God, everything is permitted. French atheist and existential philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre, opined:
Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself.... Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimize our behavior (1961, p. 485).
As essayist G.K. Chesterton once observed: "When men cease to believe in God, they do not believe in nothing; they believe in anything" (as quoted in Bales, 1967, p. 133).
The concept of deism (from the Latin deus, god) had its beginnings among writers in seventeenth-century England, beginning with Edward Herbert (1581-1648) who later became the first Baron Herbert of Cherbury and often is recognized as the "father of deism." In his 1624 book, De Veritate (On Truth), Lord Herbert laid out five basic principles of deism: "(1) The being of God; (2) that he is to be worshipped; (3) that piety and moral virtue are the chief parts of worship; (4) that God will pardon our faults on repentance; and, (5) that there is a future state of rewards and punishment" (see McClintock and Strong, 1879, 2:730). In the second edition of that work (1645), Herbert expanded his ideas as he dealt with the foundations of religion and critiqued the idea of direct revelation from God. That same year, he further elaborated his views in De Causis Errorum (Concerning the Causes of Errors). An additional work, De Religione Gentilium (The Religion of the Gentiles) was published posthumously in 1663. He urged a quick and permanent abandonment of the idea that God supernaturally intervened in man's world in any way.
Herbert's views were propagated by a number of influential British writers such as his chief disciple, Charles Blount (1654-1693), Anthony Collins (1676-1729), Thomas Woolston (1670-1731), Matthew Tindal (1655-1733), and Peter Annet (1693-1769), who was the last of the old-line British deists. In the eighteenth century, deism flourished in France. In fact, "English deism strongly influenced later French deism and skepticism, of which Diderot and Voltaire are notable examples" (Geisler, 1976, p. 165). Shortly thereafter, deism spread to Germany and held sway in Europe for a hundred years. Norman Geisler has added:
Along the way there were many philosophical figures who may not technically qualify as deists but who nonetheless gave impetus to and provided arguments for the movement. Bacon's scientific approach, John Locke's empiricism, and David Hume's skepticism about miracles definitely aided the deistic cause (1976, p. 152).
Eventually deism spread to early colonial America as well. The editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica noted:
By the end of the 18th century, Deism had become a dominant religious attitude among intellectual and upper class Americans.... The first three presidents of the United States also held deistic convictions, as is amply evidenced in their correspondence (1997, 26:569).
The evidence sustains such an assessment.
In America deism flourished after it had declined in England. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine are classed as deists.... Perhaps more than anywhere else in the United States, deistic tendencies of naturalism and Biblical criticism have lived on in modernistic or liberal Protestantism... (Geisler, 1976, pp. 165-166).
But why was such a system necessary? Basically deism came into existence as men attempted to work around the contradictions and internal inconsistencies posed by atheism and agnosticism. The atheist was unable to disprove God's existence, and the agnostic was forced to admit that while he might not be able to know that God exists, someone else certainly might possess such knowledge. Enter deism.
The best way out of the dilemmas posed by atheism and agnosticism would appear to be the following: let us say that there is a God. This God created the world. He issued to the world a moral law, a code of behavior which all of His creatures are supposed to follow. God will someday judge His creatures on how well they obeyed His commandments. In the meantime He does not interfere with His creation. He made it the way He wanted it to be, and He will not contradict His own will. For the moment, we worship God and try to live by His law, but we must not expect Him to do supernatural things for us (Corduan, 1993, p. 90).
What, then, are the exact tenets of deism? Truth be told, at times those tenets are not at all easy to decipher.
In the late seventeenth and in the eighteenth century more than a few thinkers came to be called deists or called themselves deists. These men held a number of related views, but not all held every doctrine in common. John Locke, for example, did not reject the idea of revelation, but he did insist that human reason was to be used to judge it. Some deists, like Voltaire, were hostile to Christianity; some, like Locke, were not. Some believed in the immortality of the soul; some did not. Some believed God left his creation to function on its own; some believed in providence. Some believed in a personal God; others did not. So deists were much less united on basic issues than were theists (Sire, 1988, p. 50).
By way of summary, however, it may be said that the deist begrudgingly acknowledges that God exists, and even grants that God created the Universe and its inhabitants. But deism insists that since His initial miraculous act of creation, God has had nothing whatsoever to do with either the Universe or mankind. As the editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica have observed:
At times in the 19th and 20th centuries, the word Deism was used theologically in contradistinction to theism, the belief in an immanent God who actively intervenes in the affairs of men. In this sense Deism was represented as the view of those who reduced the role of God to a mere act of creation in accordance with rational laws discovered by man and held that, after the original act, God virtually withdrew and refrained from interfering in the processes of nature and the ways of man (1997, 26:567).
The idea behind deism often is clarified and discussed via the analogy of a clock, the idea being that God created the clock, wound it up, and then walked away to leave it operating on its own. In his book, The Universe Next Door, James W. Sire titled his chapter on deism, "The Clockwork Universe," and commented that according to the deist "God is thus not immanent, not fully personal, not sovereign over human affairs, not providential.... God is not interested in individual men and women or even whole peoples" (1988, pp. 50,56). The God of deism therefore has been called a "hermit God" (Dickson, 1979, 121[8]:118), an "absentee landlord" (Brown, 1984, p. 47), and a "God in absentia" (Coats, 1989, p. 61). The deist's position is not that God cannot perform miracles; rather it is that God will not perform miracles because "according to deism, it is contrary to God's nature to do miracles.... In deism God and the supernatural are considered to be incompatible" (Corduan, 1993, p. 91).
Such a position inevitably leads to the following. First, deism rejects both the triune nature of the Godhead and the deity of Christ. Geisler and Brooks assessed the matter by suggesting that deists
...believe that God never specially intervenes in the world to help mankind. Since this also means that Jesus was not God (that would be a miracle), there is no reason for them to believe that God is a Trinity. The idea of three Persons in one nature (the Trinity) is to them just bad math (1990, p. 40).
Or, as Hoover has noted: "Deists believed in a Supreme Being, but he was only one in number. They denied the doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation. Jesus Christ was merely a great moral teacher" (1976, p. 12). Thus, the deist denies "any supernatural redemptive act in history" (Harrison, 1966, p. 162).
Second, deism rejects the idea that God has given a special revelation of Himself in the Bible. For God to reveal Himself by speaking directly to man would be a miracle—an intervention into man's world. This is something the deist is not prepared to accept. Observation of the general revelation that God has left of Himself in nature, says the deist, is sufficient for understanding the Creator and His desires for mankind.
What did a typical deist deny? In one word: intervention.... God didn't need to reveal anything about himself in a holy book like the Bible or the Koran. Nature itself is the only revelation God needs. A rational man could find out all that he needed to know about God from nature... (Hoover, 1976, p. 13, emp. in orig.).
In summarizing the aversion of the deist to the miraculous, Roger Dickson noted that "the principle point of concern here is the deist's denial of the inspiration of the Bible and miracles. If God does not intervene in the natural world, then both are impossible" (1979, p. 118).
Third, deism advocates that human reason alone is all man needs to understand God and His laws for humankind.
Deism...refers to what can be called natural religion, the acceptance of a certain body of religious knowledge that is inborn in every person or that can be acquired by the use of reason, as opposed to knowledge acquired through either revelation or the teaching of any church... (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1997, 26:567).
Sir Peter Medawar put it this way: "The 17th-century doctrine of the necessity of reason was slowly giving way to a belief in the sufficiency of reason" (1969, p. 438). Without special revelation from God (a miracle), deism had no choice but to advocate that reason alone was sufficient.
Fourth, deism rejects the notions of a prayer-hearing/prayer-answering God and a God Who works in men's lives through divine providence. As Hoover observed: "If you deny revelation you must also sweep out miracle, prayer, and providence. Any tampering with nature and her perfect laws would imply that nature had a defect" (1976, p. 13, emp. in orig.). Coats lamented:
With his concept of God, there is no possible way for the deist to believe in the providence of God. Since God has taken a long journey and is "at rest," He leaves the affairs of men and nations to tick alone, as would the pendulum of a clock. There is no reason to pray to a deistic god for the system is completely fatalistic (1989, p. 61, emp. in orig.).
What response may be offered to deism? First, deism's flawed view of God's inability to work miracles must be addressed. Corduan has reasoned as follows:
Now we can see that deism is actually irrational.... If God can perform the miracle of creation, there is no good reason why He cannot do other miracles. Thus deism has an inconsistency at its core. Two affirmations are at the heart of deism: (1) God performed the miracle of creation; and (2) God does not perform miracles. If you are a deist, you must believe both of them, and yet these affirmations cannot both be true. Therefore deism is not a believable worldview. It founders on the criterion of consistency (1993, pp. 91-92).
Second, if the deist believes supernatural Creation occurred, he cannot deny the only divine source of knowledge concerning that Creation—special revelation.
The deistic arguments intended to eliminate the basis for belief in a supernatural revelation apply equally as well to elimination of the deistic belief in creation.... If the Bible cannot be trusted to teach one doctrine then there is no grounds for believing the other one is true.... Hence, the deist defeats his own case against revelation when he accepts from revelation the doctrine of creation (Geisler, 1976, p. 170).
Third, since God created the laws of the Universe, and since those laws are contingent upon God for their very existence, there is no good reason why an omnipotent God could not set aside those laws for the benefit of mankind. Furthermore, would not a God concerned enough to create humans likewise be concerned enough to intervene on their behalf on occasion—especially if they had fallen into grave (spiritual) danger? Geisler has suggested:
"You have made your own bed, lie in it" is something less than the attitude a good Creator ought to have. If he had enough love and concern for man to create him, then it would seem to be most compatible with such a nature to believe that God would miraculously intervene to help him if he were in need. And surely a God strong enough to create the world is strong enough to help it. The laws of creation are not inviolable; they are created and contingent. And what is created and contingent can be laid aside if need be for the moral good of man. Hence, the nature of God, even as conceived by deists, would be compatible with miraculous intervention into the natural world when the situation calls for it (1976, p. 170).
God is not just a "Master Universe Mechanic." He also is personal—a concept even deists accept. Is it not reasonable, then, to suggest that this personal Creator would desire communication between Himself and His creation—especially if the creation had been made "in His image"?
Fourth, the idea that human reason alone is an adequate guide for mankind, and that the "natural world" can provide him with all that he needs to know in regards to behavior, ethics, response to God, etc., is severely flawed. As Hoover wrote:
Especially puerile was the deistic belief that you could establish an ethical code by mere reason based only on nature. Which part of nature do we consult for this moral standard? What animal gives us the norm? Some spiders eat their mate after sexual intercourse—should we humans imitate this example? If not, which animal shall we follow? (1976, p. 14).
Fifth, deism became the easily crossed bridge from theism to out-and-out naturalism—the view that there is no God and that "nature" is all that exists. Sire summed up this fact when he wrote:
Deism did not prove to be a very stable world view. Historically it held sway over the intellectual world of France and England briefly from the late seventeenth into the first half of the eighteenth century. Preceded by theism, it was followed by naturalism (1988, pp. 56-57, emp. added).
Roger Dickson has pointed out that for many of its adherents, "deism was the first step toward naturalism" (1979, 121[8]:118). In his monumental work, Does God Exist?, Hans Kung summarized the situation.
This Deism, not accepted by theology, which still needed God in the physical world...now developed consistently into a scientific atheism, which did not need God either physically for the explanation of the world or even morally for the conduct of life (1980, p. 91, emp. in orig.).
Today, it is rare to find a genuine deist. I mention it here, however, not merely from a historical perspective, but also to document the end result of accepting it. As Kung poignantly noted, deism "developed consistently into a scientific atheism, which did not need God."
Every person familiar with the Bible is aware of one of its central themes—the evil results of unbelief. Throughout the Bible, Heaven's warning was that belief (and its accompanying faithfulness) would bring spiritual life and God's blessings, while unbelief (and its accompanying unfaithfulness) would bring God's wrath and spiritual death. The prophet Ezekiel spoke of the man who "turneth away from righteousness and comitteth iniquity, and dieth therein" as being one who "in his iniquity...shall die" (18:26). The apostle Paul observed that the Old Testament had been penned "for our learning" (Romans 15:4), and was to be our "schoolmaster" (Galatians 3:24). It should come as no surprise, then, to see Paul catalog in 1 Corinthians 10 a number of instances of apostasy—as a warning to those who might be thinking about following in their unbelieving predecessors' footsteps.
All too often man's "wisdom" has replaced God's (see 1 Corinthians 1:18-25), causing many to lose their way in what has become one of the most horrible, and yet one of the most common, tragedies of our day. The price humans have paid for being intellectually learned but spiritually ignorant—the loss of their own souls—has been far higher than we ever could have imagined.
Bales, James D. (1967), The God Killer (Tulsa, OK: Christian Crusade Publications).
Brown, Colin (1984), Miracles and the Critical Mind (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans).
Clark, Gordon H. (1957), Thales to Dewey—A History of Philosophy (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1980 reprint).
Coats, Wayne (1989), "How do Deism and Pantheism Function as Anti-Providence Views?," The Providence of God, ed. Thomas B. Warren and Garland Elkins (Southaven, MS: Southaven Church of Christ), pp. 59-67.
Corduan, Winfried (1993), Reasonable Faith (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman).
Dickson, Roger (1979), "The Hermit-God Theology," Gospel Advocate, 121[8]:118-119, February 22.
Durant, Will (1961), The Story of Philosophy (New York: Simon & Schuster).
Encyclopaedia Britannica (1997), s.v. "Religious and Spiritual Belief, Systems of," (London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.), 26:530-577.
Geisler, Norman L. (1976), Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).
Geisler, Norman L. and Ronald M. Brooks (1990), When Skeptics Ask (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books).
Harrison, Everett F. (1966), Baker's Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker).
Hoover, Arlie J. (1976), Ideas and Their Consequences (Abilene, TX: Biblical Research Press).
Hoover, Arlie J. (1981), "Starving the Spirit," Firm Foundation, 98[4]:6, January.
Huxley, Julian (1964), Essays of a Humanist (New York: Harper & Row).
Key, Bobby (1982), "Sin Is a Reproach to Any People," Four State Gospel News, 21[12]:2.
Koster, John (1989), The Atheist Syndrome (Brentwood, TN: Wolgemuth & Hyatt).
Kung, Hans (1980), Does God Exist? (New York: Doubleday).
Kurtz, Paul (1973), "Scientific Humanism," The Humanist Alternative, ed. Paul Kurtz, (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus).
Lamont, Corliss (1949), Humanism as a Philosophy (New York: Philosophical Library).
McClintock, John and James Strong (1879), Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1970 reprint).
Medawar, Peter (1968), "On 'The Effecting of All Things Possible,' " The Listener, October 2.
Montgomery Advertiser (1999), "Atheists Move Headquarters," p. 3-D, April 3.
O'Hair, Madalyn Murray (1983), "Introduction," Sixty-five Press Interviews with Robert G. Ingersoll (Austin, TX: American Atheist Press).
Raymo, Chet (1998), Skeptics and True Believers (New York: Walker).
Sartre, Jean Paul, (1961), "Existentialism and Humanism," French Philosophers from Descartes to Sartre, ed. Leonard M. Marsak (New York: Meridian).
Simpson, George Gaylord (1964), This View of Life (New York: Harcourt-Brace).
Sire, James W. (1988), The Universe Next Door (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press).
Van Biema, David (1997), "Where's Madalyn?," Time, 149[6]:56-60, February 10.
Copyright © 1999 Apologetics Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
This document may be copied, on the condition that it will not be republished in print unless otherwise stated below, and will not be used for any commercial purpose, as long as the following stipulations are observed: (1) Apologetics Press must be designated as the original publisher; (2) the specific Apologetics Press Web site URL must be noted; (3) any references, footnotes, or endnotes that accompany the article must be included with any written reproduction of the article; (4) textual alterations of any kind are strictly forbidden; (5) Some illustrations (e.g., photographs, charts, graphics, etc.) are not the intellectual property of Apologetics Press and as such cannot be reproduced from our site without consent from the person or organization that maintains those intellectual rights; (6) serialization of written material (e.g., running an article in several parts) is permitted, as long as the whole of the material is made available, without editing, in a reasonable length of time; (7) articles, in whole or in part, may not be offered for sale or included in items offered for sale; and (8) articles may be reproduced in electronic form for posting on Web sites pending they are not edited or altered from their original written content and that credit is given to Apologetics Press, including the web location from which the articles were taken. Further, documents may not be copied without source statements (title, author, journal title), and the address of the publisher and owner of rights, as listed below.
For catalog, samples, or further information, contact:
Apologetics Press
230 Landmark Drive
Montgomery, Alabama 36117
Phone (334) 272-8558


text:
Relationships with
Photo Credit: Tom Hayden's picture is courtesy of Robert Altman Photography. Photographic illustrations of Tom Hayden are copyright © by their respective holders. The images are published with permission or as allowed by the copyright law's fair use or quotation provisions. If any copyright holder objects to an image being included, please notify us and it will be removed immediately.
Disclaimer: This information about Tom Hayden is derived from astrological interpretation of Tom Hayden's date, time, and place of birth.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Cosmo Trouble is a character in Grand Theft Auto 2 who is a member of the Loonies gang. Claude Speed takes a job from Cosmo Trouble,[1] which turns out to be an ambush involving three Zaibatsu hitmen.[2] However, Claude kills the attackers.[3]
- His name is most likely a play on cause more trouble.
GTA 2 Mission Appearances
- ↑ Elmo: "Hey, Jumbo! You should meet Cosmo Trouble, Downtown. He's got a bonkers mad job for you!" (from the Who's Behind You! mission)
- ↑ Elmo: "Jumbo, it's me, Elmo. That call was a hoax. Your ass has been set up by my bonkers mad brother who's sent three serious hitmen after you. You'd better kill them - quick." (from the Who's Behind You! mission)
- ↑ Elmo: "Maybe you ain't so crazy, Jumbo, 'cos those hitmen are all history." (from the Who's Behind You! mission)
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.


text:
The summer of 2014 has looked a lot like the summer of 2013 for President Barack Obama. In quick succession, the scandals which plagued his administration in the summer of last year – the IRS's targeting and the White House's response to the Benghazi attacks – were augmented by the addition of a couple of international crises, the abuses at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and flood of immigrant children across the southern border.
The president appears paralyzed, but that is not the case. The administration has made the conscious decision in the case of the immigration crisis not to attempt to resolve it with vigor, preferring instead to allow the Congress to act in tandem with the White House in order to both effect a comprehensive solution and to prevent the president from being personally linked to the border crisis.
To the press, which has always been enamored with the robust executive, Obama's White House seems stunned and unable to manage crisis communications. That was the subject of Tuesday's First Read Minute, hosted by NBC News Senior Political Editor Mark Murray and National Political Writer Carrie Dann: "Why can't the Obama administration deal with crisis?"
At least, that was the purported topic of conversation. But this segment went bizarrely off the rails rather fast.
Murray began by observing that the Summer of Scandals II is even worse for the White House than Summer of Scandals I. From the Ukraine, to Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and the Taliban Five, to the VA, to immigration; the White House has their hands full. Dann noted that the immigration crisis has been particularly poorly handled.
"This has been a growing problem, but it's really ballooned in the last couple weeks as there's been more press around these kids who are coming unaccompanied, and it's really just dominating the narrative for the White House," Dann said. "And it seems like something that the White House could have seen coming. This wasn't a problem that suddenly exploded overnight. It's been growing since 2009."
She observed that the White House seems to be reactive to crises rather than proactive. "And that reaction, always kind of being controlled by events rather than controlling events, has been a problem for this White House when it comes to this crisis management story," Murray agreed.
So far, so good, right? It would be hard to disagree with any of this analysis. But, then, the familiar reflexes began to kick and you could literally see the gears grinding as the hosts groped for the president's source of absolution.
The first equally culpable party in the immigration crisis, Murray alleged, was Congress who had failed to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. "But this is also a media story," he self-flagellated. "We keep going from one crisis to the next, to the next, to the next. And, like, 'Oh, you remember Ukraine? How did that end up? Who's the new VA secretary? Totally forgot about that guy.'"
Dann agreed, noting that the Bergdahl episode which dominated the headlines for weeks in the late spring "seems like an afterthought" today. Even the Affordable Care Act, a source of endless consternation for the White House, has fallen off the front pages.
Murray and Dann's assessment is more of an indictment of the media than a successful effort to absolve the White House of fault for terrible crisis management. The natural inclination of journalists and editors alike is to favor the fresh, the new, the breaking. This creates disincentives to follow up on any of last week's big stories in spite of the fact that they remain rich sources of both titillating and captivating news.
That practice may serve the readership, and it definitely serve the bottom line, but it doesn't serve the public.
The pair closed by happily noting that they are "eight crises in" and they will be moving on to "the ninth one soon." That is a confession, not a signoff.
This was a bizarre segment which evolved from an intentional indictment of the White House's political acumen to an inadvertent condemnation of the press as a whole. Then again, those two parties really are two halves of the same whole.


text:
My name is Geng, and I started a project on a 2 axis GPS solar tracker that solely base on GPS information instead of relying on a light sensor of any kind.
In the picture, it's a Elegoo mega and an adafruit GPS shield (and another protoshield for my convenience). It's connected to a external GPS antenna and an adafruit anemometer. The limit switch is for breaking the motor (indicated by the LED lights), which will have 4 relays connected once finished too. There are two buttons for reset control and two encoder for motors. I used all 6 interrupt pins on it.
My question is what is a good resource to use to turn this into PCB. I have 0 experience in PCB design, and I fear that I may mess up the arduino (elegoo) part because I have no clue of what all the chips are for. Would it be a good idea to just look for a schematic design of the arduino and copy it + the circuit I have? Or just leave the arduino and print a small circuit board as a custom shield?
Or is there a company (group) who would provide such service?
Thanks. This is my first time using this forum. Please let me know if I did it right.


text:
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has given its blessing to a key component of G.hn, the prospective standard for data networking over mains wiring, home phone lines and coax cabling.
As is the case with all standards organisations, the wheels move sure but slow. There are many more steps to take before G.hn becomes a formal standard, but the specification has now reached the stage - known as an "Approved Recommendation" - where companies can begin to develop products that implement the technology, safe in the knowledge that it isn't going to change to any appreciable extent.
The agreement, announced last week, covers G.hn's physical layer (PHY). The Data Link Layer (DLL) specification was said to be "stable" but this won't gain ITU's "Consent" until January 2010, with ratification a way down the line after that. The G.hn PHY achieved a similar Consent status in December 2008.
Also last week, the ITU marked up Recommendation G.9972, which governs, coexistence with existing powerline adaptors, as achieving the Union's Consent.
Almost immediately, powerline Ethernet chip maker DS2 said it will go ahead and develop its DSS9960 chipset for G.hn-based products, though since it's long been a G.hn supporter that's no more or less than expected.
Once again, DS2 stated its plan to ensure DS9960-based products work with older 100Mb/s and 200Mb/s products based in the Universal Powerline Association (UPA) standard.
UPA competes with HomePlug, which has favoured the IEEE's attempt to create a unified home wired networking technology, P1901.
G.hn uses a single combined PHY/MAC for all three cabling types. P1901, on the other hand, specifies three, incompatible PHY/MACs combos. Vendors can use any or all of these, ensuring buyers need to check beforehand which kinds of wiring a given product supports. They can't just assume compatibility from the P1901 branding. They can with G.hn.
In any case, P1901 has a G.hn compatibility requirement. If you're going to design P1901 kit, then you may as well just stick with G.hn and have done with it. That, G.hn's backers reckon, renders P1901 an irrelevance. ®
Special Report
G.hn-ing for gigabit How the next-gen home LAN standard war was won


text:
There's something indescribable about bath time: the way a small child looks glistening wet, the smell of his damp hair, the sound of giggles and splashing against the acoustics of ceramic tile. It's a bit enchanting.
I was immersed in the contentedness of it all the other night as I sat by the tub watching my son. Like usual, he was hypnotizing himself with the motion of water by repeatedly filling a wooden bowl and slowly pouring the water out. Inevitably, he stops to take a drink. Like many toddlers, he loves drinking his bath water. I've watched him do it countless times, but this time the proverbial light bulb went on.
We're so careful about what we feed him and the beverages we choose, but somehow this innocent moment of ingestion had never crossed my mind. Bath time is about purity and cleanliness. Since we use natural and non-toxic bath wash and shampoos, we had nothing else to worry about, right? Unfortunately, no.
First of all, and perhaps the most obvious fact is that, while American tap water is some of the cleanest in the world (depending on where you live and whether you are drawing from a public source or a private well), there can still be contamination. An Environmental Working Group study of national tap water quality in 2005 found more than 140 contaminants with no enforceable safety limits. Secondly, drinking the bath water is not the only way your child may be exposed to contaminants in it. As the water evaporates (and this is much more of a concern for showers), your child can inhale contaminants. In fact, according to the American Chemical Society, "we could receive from 6 to 100 times more chlorine by breathing the air around showers and baths than we could by drinking water." Also, your skin is porous (and especially so in warm water which opens up pores), so dermal absorption is another route for contaminants to find their way into your child's body.
If you've cleaned your tub recently with a conventional cleanser, and you haven't rinsed it well enough, chemical residues can end up becoming a part of your baby's bath water (which as you can guess by now – can end up being absorbed, inhaled, or ingested by your baby). So, skip the tough stuff and get a natural shine by either buying non-toxic cleaners or using simple ingredients like vinegar, baking soda, and lemon juice.
So the next time your little one jumps in the tub for her nightly scrub-a-dub, keep it even cleaner by filtering your water (or at the very least – discouraging your child from drinking it). There are great small bath filters that can hang from the tub's nozzle that remover chlorine and other water contaminants. Be sure to use natural and non-toxic bath products and lotions. And finally, after they are all clean and jump into a fluffy towel – well, what was it cleaned with? Avoid those harsh conventional laundry cleaners, opt for non-toxic softeners and dryer sheets, and skip the chlorine bleach.
Now where's our PVC-free yellow duckie hiding?


text:
Ummmmm... isn't that at least one good thing that has come from all this hate?... right guys?
Hate The Player, Not The Game
BOB GARFIELD: Who's the victim in this ecosystem of hate versus hate?
MATT TAIBBI: Well, I think we all are, especially the people who are the audiences of these shows. You know, and I've seen this in families. You know, you have one uncle who listens to Rush and another uncle who listens to Air America, and they don't talk to each other any more. People who are neighbors – you know, they're far more likely to go turn on the O'Reilly show or listen to, you know, whatever, you know, radio show that appeals to him than they are to go next door and talk to the neighbor who they think might be of an opposite political orientation.
Listen and Read Matt Taibbi discussion on NPR's 'On The Media'


text:
Yekutiel never abandoned his traditional life style. He studied and researched ways to strengthen the traditional life style that was being attacked from many directions. He tried to attract young forces to strengthen the struggle. Yekutiel never abandoned his way of life. He continued the traditional ways that dealt with the study of the torah. He studied torah with the young men of Korczyn as long as he resided in town. But he was not satisfied and left town.
I finished my apprenticeship and became a painter, survived WWI and came to America where I struggled to make a living and forgot about Yekutiel Kamelhar. It was only after WWII, when the Korczyner Landsmen started to meet in the Korczyner-Reisher synagogue, did I discover that Yekutiel Kamelhar was the Rabbi of the shul. I wanted to meet him but this was only possible on Shabbat or Holidays, for on weekdays I worked and I lived too far away in Brooklyn to travel. The president of the shul was Moshe Horowitz who used to build floors. He was not a scholar but observed Shabbath and Holidays, prayed daily and observed kashruth. He lived next to the shul and eventually became the president of the congregation. He was a nice person but was never able to judge people, especially scholars. Later I met Moshe Horowitz and asked him about the rabbi and he told me that he was fired. The rabbi interfered in the running of the shul, namely tried to prevent the decoration of the shul during the three-week morning period. Of course he was dismissed. He later left for Israel and shortly thereafter died there. I later discovered that prior to and during WWI, he was the head of the Stanislawer Yeshiva . He also headed the Yeshiva in Krakow and possibly Reishe. He refused to compromise and paid dearly for his conduct. It was a pity that in his old age he had to start to wander from place to place.
Haim Dym was called spodik as a sign of his piety. He was also a religious scholar and a man of charity. He gave charity and collected charity from others. He used to make the rounds with the melamed or teacher Moshe Mechale. When they entered a home and they met a woman who insisted on giving a donation directly to them, Moshe Mechale would point to his stick that had a small receptacle attached to it. He would ask the lady to insert the coin into the container and then retrieve it. Thus direct contact was avoided. Haim Dym visited sick people and whenever they needed financial help he extended. He refused to participate in community life. He conducted himself with the utmost piety and hoped that others would imitate him. When many people left the main shul following WWI to join small groups, he remained attached to the main shul. He insisted on the unity of the Jewish community. He never read a newspaper but was always involved in the study of torah. His wife Roisale conducted the wholesale linen business, the experience she acquired from her father Naphtali Raab. Haim Dym knew nothing about the business. All the purchased items were sent from the warehouse under their apartment. Here they kept the merchandise and from here everything was sent and received. Roisale still managed to find time to cook soup for the sick and to bring it to them at home.
Haim Dym's children, especially the sons, were raised in a very pious tradition. They never cut their peyot nor did they curl them. His son David met me some years after I left Korczyn and criticized me for shortening my peyot. I had empathy for him that he expressed such pain on seeing me in this light. I never found out what happens to peyot that kept growing, do they reach the floor or do they stop growing at a certain stage? I never saw someone with peyot to the floor, so there must be a secret. This was the pious life of the Dym family. May their memory be blessed.
It was known that Gedalia knew the books of the prophets and the scribes better than some of the talmudic scholars for they did not delve into these writings except where it concerned prayers, psalms, the story of Job or the book of Ester. The latter writings took up some interest since they pertained to particular events in Jewish history such as Purim.
Besides the books of the prophets of Samuel A and Samuel B, the cheder did not teach Jewish history. This concept was handed down from generation to generation. Only a few scholars dealt in the area, the rest stayed away from the field. The book called Shulchan Aruch or Set Table was widely accepted as the final authority on Jewish behavior. The great achievement of a Jewish student was to know a page of the Talmud with the commentaries. The sharp students who continued their intellectual pursuits of course came in contact with Jewish history, the prophets, and scribes, since they delved into talmudic commentaries that were based on these sources. However the great majority of students did not come into contact with Jewish history except through the stories of the torah.
Gedalia was an exceptional teacher who had a large background of Jewish information, but there was no demand for it, and he decided to become an elementary teacher. He was an excellent raconteur and every evening prior to the minha and maariv services, he told stories about the deeds of pious rabbis and the audience adored it. I never missed his stories; they were fascinating. The other people also enjoyed the stories, and his abilities to portray the events was fascinating. He was able to write letters to the German merchants in a mixture of Yiddish and German. This was quite an asset and many respectable merchants used this type of letter to deal with their German counterparts. Some young students established contact with German firms and received samples for sale. Sometimes, this was the beginning of a long commercial relationship. Gedalia apparently also started, in a similar fashion, to deal with Vienna. During the High Holiday season when the cheder was closed, or when he could arrange with Baruch the melamed to cover his class, he would travel to Vienna; he bought merchandise that he sold in Korczyn.
The merchandise consisted of used and out of fashion items, such as men's or women's clothing, shirts of the nobility with collars, tuxedos, pants, vests, high formal hats, all kinds of shoes and buttons. All of this merchandise was displayed on Wednesday in the market area. Men, women, Jews and Gentiles crowded around the display and selected the items that they liked. They haggled about the price but the items were sold. Jewish women showed their artistry by converting some of these items into excellent clothing items without a trace of the original style. Large items were reduced to smaller sizes. A large tuxedo became a pair of slacks for children, a German shirt was converted to a Jewish shirt by removing the collar and the cuffs. Shoes and boots were grounded into the Korczyner mud and they immediately lost their big city color. The soles of course were excellent. It did not take too much time for Gedalia to unload the merchandise. Farmers would buy the formal hats or some Jews would buy them for Purim. I do not know how much Gedalia made on these trips to Vienna His wife Perl Yente also dealt with colored and white linens at the Krosno market on Monday and at the Korczyner market on Friday. Nobody knew the financial situation of the family until his brother in law, Mordechai Rossdeutscher, returned from the USA and informed everybody that he will be the teacher of the cheder and Gedalia would be leaving for the States.
Apparently Gedalia was not making a living, for people with an income do not leave their place of residence. Gedalia left for the States and WWI started; that prevented him from bringing the rest of the family to the States. Only with the end of the war was the family reunited in the States where Gedalia had already three sons, Leibish, Ben Zion and Hersch Davidowitz. Perl Yente Davidowitz had two sisters in the USA; Esther and Serl Rossdeutscher, both were married. Yente Perl and her four sons and one daughter had to wait until after WWI to be reunited with their family. When I visited the family in 1921 in the States, all the members were there and lived on Houston St. in New York City. I met Gedalia but he lacked the warmth of Korczyn. New York had changed him. He owned a store of clothing materials and remained independent to his last day. Something had changed inside that was difficult to describe. He was no longer the person of stories and fables although his clothing did not change radically. He still wore a beard and peyot, a velvet hat, a white shirt without a tie and a coat with straight pockets instead of the Hassidic coat or bekeshe with side pockets. Gedalia made some compromise with the new environment although it was not drastic. He also told the author that when he appeared in Federal court for his citizenship and the judge asked him how long he was in the USA, he answered by stretching himself out to his full length and said so long. The judge smiled and granted him citizenship. When will we have similar judges throughout the world that do not search all the details but accept face value statements.
His oldest daughter Hinde, married to Israel Yaacov Soffer, occasionally brought him cooked meals in a pot with a cover. These meals radically altered his diet. He never asked her for the meals and never received a thank you. She came and left quietly. I do not know where he ate on Shabbat and holidays but he did not seem disturbed about it. He washed his hands and made the appropriate blessing prior to eating and then thanked the Lord for providing him with the food. Besides teaching, Moshe also held other non-paying honorary functions in Korczyn. Friday night after the services at the shul, he assigned the poor people to various homes for the Shabbath meal. He decided where one should go and used his judgment in assigning people. No one invited a guest without consulting Moshe and he was constantly reminded to provide a guest for the table since that was a great honor for the family, and the wife would treat him with special deference. He was also the treasurer of the special fund that the kehilla would raise frequently to provide the poor non-resident beggars with some financial contribution and sent them on their way. Moshe Mechale managed the fund and provided them with some contribution. He even visited nearby towns when the Korczyn kehilla collection was too small. This was done to provide the local poor people with the necessary assistance to subsist. There were no announcements about the distribution that Moshe Mechale gave but those that needed help knew about it. Moshe decided whether to give 20, 30, 40 or 50 pennies according to the appearance of the beggar. The better the appearance the larger the sum. He tore a page from his notebook and wrote in pencil that he moistened with his tongue, this amount is to be given to so and so, and told the receiver of the note where to collect the amount. It never happened that someone tried to erase and increase the amount.
Moshe Mechale was also the master of ceremonies at the poor weddings. I remember such a wedding when Moshe Mechale and Zalke the melamed told each other off in a joyous manner and befitting a wedding. Everything was spontaneous and with decorum befitting the religious atmosphere of the wedding. Today it would be called a show, then it was provided by two gifted people who did it to entertain the guests and to provide joy to the festivity. Moshe Mechale's main attraction was his role as the Purim Rabbi of Korczyn. Every Shabbath before Purim, Moshe Mechale dressed specially for the occasion and the entire township treated him with respect. On the top of his shtreimel or special Hassidic hat, he had a small pyramid, and a blue or red velvet coat or bekeshe, sometimes another color. [He never wore a black silk coat or bekeshe like the other Hassidic Jews in town]. He tied his coat with a white towel instead of the usual band or gartel and this gave him special attention. He stood next to the local rabbi during the service until the reading of the torah. Then he tapped on the table for silence and delivered a special Purim sermon.
The sermon was very erudite and scholarly, of course Haman received his due in the sermon. His sermon was a masterpiece of story telling that included all the Purim characters and events and showed his great knowledge and ability. Each year there was a different sermon built around a different topic. He was the only one that delivered sermons. The local rabbi never gave sermons. He took his position seriously and even the rabbi respected him for the job. He of course received the sixth alyah to the torah that was always reserved for the presiding rabbi of the congregation. Moshe Mechale was not a show off but took his religion seriously. He prayed quietly and concentrated in his prayers so as to be united with the Master. His talith covered his head and only his face would be seen.
David Stretner was an excellent reader of the torah and occasionally he read the torah on Shabbath. He knew the section of the week by heart and once started he could finish the entire section. Usually Zalke read the torah on Shabbath. David had a beautiful script and adjusted the letters to the space. He could write the Song of Songs scroll on a postcard. Once he set himself to a task, he finished it. His wife was also a very busy person. Both worked and managed to scrape a living. They rented a flat from Godale that consisted of one room that had a kitchen and a cheder room. They had one three year old son, I think his name was Abraham. I played with him for I liked to play with smaller children than myself. In wintertime, David collected from us two pennies to fill the kerosene lamp that stood on the table. We all made paper lanterns that would light the way home during the darkness. Of course, the night increased a sense of insecurity that David's lanterns erased.
Once my mother came to David with a demand. She received five guildens from her brother in law in the States, David Schenk, and wanted to send him a thank you note. She gave him a postcard and left. He wrote a beautiful letter as though she had dictated to him the letter. I was amazed how one could read the mind of another person without talking to them. That was David Stretner. What happened to him and his family, the same thing that happened to every Jew in Korczyn.
During the summer months, we concentrated on the study of the Saying of the Sages that was read on Shabbaths during the summer, and Bless my Soul that was read in the winter on Shabbaths in the winter. These teachings strengthened our moral fibers and penetrated our subconscious. He was an excellent teacher and a fine pedagogue. He tried to provide answers to questions and did the best he could with difficult questions. He took time, especially with the teaching of the Talmud, where apparent conflicts were resolved with the help of looking at the commentaries and their interpretations of the differences. He continued to search for the answer until he was satisfied that we students understood the problems and the possible answers. He encouraged students to think and ask questions that were then answered. Questions that were not resolved completely, he recorded them and the possible answers in the Talmud book on the margins. I was impressed with the serious approach to study that Zalke used. He awakened in me a great desire to learn and I began to think of studying for the rabbinate. I knew that he was not the greatest scholar in Korczyn but he was the best teacher.
To make ends meet, Zalke also sold prayerbooks, fringes and small talits. He sometimes displayed his wares in the shul prior to the services and before the cheder started. I was a regular customer of his since I wanted to own the Talmud books that I studied with him. I also loved bible story books in Hebrew rather than Yiddish, that was primarily directed to the womenfolk. I liked to read the stories of the famous and pious rabbis. I had no money to buy these items and refused to ask my mother for help. I worked and created toys for the customers, flags for Simhat Torah, dreidels for Hanukkah, masks for Purim and painted homes prior to Passover. All these activities provided me with some pennies and enabled me to purchase some of my spiritual needs. Zalke never encouraged me to purchase unless I asked for his advice. Although I was a star pupil, he treated me with respect and tact. There was another bright student in the class, Haim Hersch Weisman, Mendel Weisman's son. He had an exceptional mind that absorbed instantly the studies. He never asked questions. I shall later discuss my friends. Shabbath and Holidays, Zalke read the torah; on occasion David Stretiner read the torah. The latter was the better reader but Zalke had seniority and read with greater feeling. There were also many other aspirants to read the torah or conduct the services in the shul of Korczyn.
His apartment consisted of a kitchen and a room. The kitchen also contained the classroom and the family lived in the room. The kitchen was 8.5 feet wide and 13 feet long. Along the left side of the wall was the entrance door to the kitchen and straight through the kitchen was a door that led to the family room that was locked from the inside. The lock consisted of a single chain, there was no need for locks in Korczyn. The kitchen had two windows and the family room also had windows along the same wall. Near the right side of the kitchen wall, there was a bed-bench that served in the day as a seating place for the students. Alongside this bench there was a long narrow table where there was plenty of room for the large talmudic books. Along the left side of the table there was another bench, the length of the table. At the head of the table, facing the entrance sat Zalke the teacher. I do not remember the chair but am certain that it was not a modern stool but rather an old fashioned piece of furniture that aged with the occupants. Opposite Zalke's chair, at the end of the table, there was a rickety seat for one or two students in case of need. Zalke had about 10-11 students, five sat on one side of the table and five sat on the other side. The seats were comfortable and there was no crowding. The average age of the students was 10-13 years of age.
Behind Zalke was the kitchen that took up a quarter of the kitchen space. Here was a big oven that warmed Zalke's back and the entire room. The stove heated the entire apartment in the winter when cooking was done or when baking was done on Friday. The warmth spread through the entire flat. In the summer, the cooking was done with pieces of wood and the fumes went directly up the chimney. Zalke's breakfast consisted of bread and butter and chicory coffee that he ate in front of the students. Lunch and supper he ate alone for most of the students went home to eat. The study day consisted of 12 hours with two breaks for lunch and supper [between the evening services] in the winter and lunch in the summer. Where the stove in the kitchen ended, there was a door that led to the family room that was similar in size to the total kitchen space. There were two beds along the wall and a dresser that separated them and in the corner next to the door there was a clothing closet. I do not recall whether there was a chair in the room. Now that I described the interior of the teacher's place, I would like to describe the external side of the family.
Zalke had two children when I was a student there. Frumet, the oldest daughter, she was my age, and Ben Zion. I later discovered that he had subsequently another three children, Beile, Mechtsche, and Braindel. Thus the apartment had ample room for the large family. WWI destroyed the place and I do not know where the family moved to in Korczyn. Why do I present so many details in these pages? So that you readers would get the feel of life in Korczyn. Most of the families in the township had one room apartments where the family and frequently two generations lived. The winds of change started with WWI when people started to request to live in their own apartments. This was very difficult and required a long process of digestion. But the process started and there was no stopping it. Families that used to live in one room started to break up. As a matter of fact, the entire township was considered one family but no more. The transition was extremely painful as the example illustrates.
Zalke had a sister, Miriam Sara, I do not know whether she was a full sister. She left Korczyn as a girl and lived in Silesia, Germany, where she married. She visited Korczyn from time to time. The visits were painful for Zalke, since she dressed in the German style. When she left town, Zalke felt again at ease. Prior to WWI, Miriam Sara became ill and asked her brother to send Frumet to help her with the household. The brother was not too keen on the idea but consented, since it was for medical reasons and to maintain the family. Frumet prepared everything and decided with the advice of so called experts to wear a small hat so that her aunt would not be ashamed of her. How women in Korczyn knew the dress styles in the world I do not know, but apparently they have an instinct for these things. Zalke objected to the hat and fights ensued in the house until a compromise was reached. Frumet will wear the hat from the Krosno railway station. Frumet left and a few weeks passed. Zalke was fearful and wrote a letter to his daughter. The latter replied that the aunt was still sick and she was needed to run the household. Zalke wrote and Frumet replied but she remained in Germany. Zalke's mind constructed all kinds of devilish plans as to what may possibly happen to his daughter in Germany. Apparently, Zalke was afraid of German civilization even before Hitler. To move one inch away from Judaism was a terrible sin for Zalke. He finally dictated a sharp letter to his daughter urging her to return home. Refusal would be considered abandoning the faith. The students overheard the expressions as they were written. He was so fearful of loosing his children to the modern way of life that he even refused to give them a chance.
Zalke's son Ben Zion once dressed up and went to shul with a stiff collar. People reported it to his father. Zalke grabbed his son and tore the collar and the shirt from his son's back. Luckily, Toibe Melamed intervened and stopped the fight. Ben Zion lost his appetite for modernity. Somewhat later Zalke mellowed a bit with time, and allowed his children to wear stiff collars. We must complete the picture of the Melamed family. Toibe Melamed cooked, baked and took care of the household, but also dealt in linens. She displayed her linens at the Friday market in Korczyn. She sold a variety of plain and colorful linens that peasant woman bought. Her stand consisted of two boxes and a board. She would also travel to the market in Kros on Monday. I do not know how much of an income she made from her sales at the markets. I do not remember where she kept her merchandise in her apartment. For Zalke also had a large basket with books, fringes and storybooks. Where they kept all these items was a secret to me. Apparently there was room for everything. I still can not perceive how crowded conditions were in the shtetl. Yet these conditions did not prevent the Jews from living a fuller spiritual life than the Germans. The Jews lived in terribly crowded conditions and maintained their human dignity.
In this cheder, I came in contact with the opposite sex. The teacher had a daughter whose name I no longer remember. She was about 17-18, ready for marriage. She kept to herself, distant from the students that were much younger than her. During Hanukkah time, when the teacher was at shul for services or on some errand, the students used to play cards. Then the daughter would join the game and help me win the pot. I always suspected that she considered me an orphan and decided to help me. I never considered myself a helpless orphan but if she insisted to help I accepted it. She seemed to like me and the same goes for me. As a matter of fact, when she was later married to Reuven [do not remember his last name] I felt a bit down although I wished them happiness. This reminds me that I played cards during the permitted time following Hanukah and made between 10-12 guilden that was a considerable amount of money. The games were mostly held in our place and involved lots of noise but we were accustomed since I always worked on scenery, dreidels, masks and flags. My mother tolerated the noise and my conduct. She treated me as an adult. One thing I must stress that we paid serious attention to all things Jewish. But where are today all the serious Jewish leaders of Korczyn that led the Jewish community? Hitler killed them all.
By the time the news item reached Korczyn, the event itself could have consumed or run its course. Still, the township discussed and interpreted the event and the implications. There were people in Korczyn that were very adept at connecting the events to the biblical scene and interpreting to present-day life. All of these discussions continued until more information arrived and strengthened or weakened the positions of the debaters. Some of the discussions transformed themselves into stories that assumed a life of their own. Hersch had no talent for stories but his mission was to bring tunes to Korczyn and this he fulfilled. He connected Korczyn to the cantorial Jewish world. He had a metal store in the Market Square that was three meters wide and very deep that led to his apartment that consisted of two or three rooms. Behind his flat was a piece of property. When I grew up, I was in steady contact with the shop since I was involved in many carpentry projects. I received boards from our neighbor Esther who received them from the yeast dealer. I made all kinds of wooden boxes and bought nails and tools from Hersch. From him I also received some practical coaching for my projects.
As I was getting older and saw the hardships at home. I realized that it was very difficult for my mother to buy boots for me. I therefore decided to use sparingly the boots, especially during the summer. Indeed, it was a real pleasure to run barefoot without the boots that felt tight or loose. Boots were made for the rich children that were sickly. I felt very strong and healthy and compared myself to a gypsy. We saw barefoot Gypsies one winter and my brother and I decided to imitate. My brother came down with a serious cold that affected him for the rest of his life while I hardly felt it. To walk in the summer rain barefoot was a real pleasure and I hardly used the boots. One day, I walked into the shul barefoot and I saw the look on Hersch Rossenhendler's face. It was the look of pity but in a paternal way. Since then I always came to shul with boots regardless of the weather. But generally, I preferred to walk barefoot to save the expense of wear and tear.
I was once invited to perform a Purim presentation at the house of Hersh Rossenhedler. My friends from cheder, Haim Hersch Weissman and Haim Fishel helped me with the presentation. We split the money gift three ways. Each participant then gave his share to a poor person in Korczyn. In order not be accused of using the money for myself, I decided that Shimon would be the cashier. But Hersh Rossenhendler insisted that I take the money gift for the Purim presentation. I took the money and gave it to my friend Shimon who was a nephew of Hersh. Shimon then divided it three ways. I am certain to this day, that Hersh was certain that I took the money since I was the poorest of the group. I was 13 or 14 years of age but set in my ways and decided to give charity to needier people than myself. Besides, I also enjoyed the adventure of performing.
I met again Hersh when I was 18-19 years of age. I was an apprentice painter in Reishe or Rzeszow. I dreamt of becoming a famous painter but had to accept daily reality that is to earn my daily bread. I used to travel to Korczyn for Passover and Succoth. I felt drawn to this place in spite of the fact that my mother no longer lived in Korczyn but married to Rymanow. During these travels I met again Hersh and talked to him. I wanted to continue to study religious texts and also to learn painting. I realized that I could not pursue both paths. Yet, I did not want to abandon Jewish studies or the Jewish way of life. For I was still deeply religious, wore my peyot although trimmed or curled. Later I removed them but let them grow when I traveled to Korczyn. I gave the appearance of a Yeshiva student and was treated as such by the people that knew me even though I was no longer a student. While traveling with Hersh and involved in my own dreams, Hersh Rossenhendler suddenly asked me how I was doing. Of course, I did not describe the slave condition of an apprentice. But I did tell him that when I would finish my studies, I would receive a salary of 18 guilden a week. I did not describe the hardships that were still ahead. He then told me that if he were my age, he too would study a trade. I was surprised to hear these words. Perhaps he wanted to support me or perhaps this was a true sentiment. The fact that he made such statement in 1911 or 1912 was indeed a comforting thing to do. May his memory be blessed.
I still remember to this day how Mendel dressed prior to his winter trips to his forests. He wore a big fur coat over his regular coat with the side pockets; the fur had a large sable collar that could cover the ears, several scarves around his neck; the sleeves ended in sable fur and were wide to enable the opposite hand to find shelter from the cold weather. He hired a peasant coach filled with straw and hay on all sides so that the cold weather was minimized. In addition the coach had many blankets to wrap the passengers during the trip. Thus started Mendel his winter trips that lasted sometimes weeks. But he always returned home for Shabbath and left with end of Shabbath. I do not remember that he ever missed a Shabbath at home. He also had a custom to bring fish for Shabbath for his poor neighbors. This was very difficult in the winter months when the rivers were frozen. Yet Mendel's workers cracked the ice and caught fish that he brought home and gave them to his neighbors. The latter cleaned, divided the portions, salted and peppered the fish. It was Mendel's task to sweeten and cook the fish and his wife baked and cooked the Shabbath meals.
Mendel had a good voice and occasionally led the mussaf or second half of the Shabbath service in the Korczyn shul. He knew enough Hebrew to understand the meaning of the prayers as did many other Jews of the township. He was not extreme in his religious conceptions, nor was he affected by modern trends in spite of his many contacts with the outside business world. Mendel was for many years a member of the kehilla leadership, and when Shulem Akselrad, the head of the kehilla died, Mendel Weissman was appointed head of the kehilla, and led it until WWI. During the war, he and his family left for Budapest and following the war returned to the city of Tarnow, Galicia. Prior to the war, Mendel received a license to sell tobacco, cigarettes and snuff. Reisel, his third daughter ran the shop until she married.[His oldest daughter Esther and Haya were already married and his oldest son Meir was in Switzerland]. Then Neche, the fourth daughter took over the business and she was assisted occasionally by her brothers Haim Hersh, my friend from cheder, Shulem, Wolf and Chaskel. Mendel was never seen in the store. He observed it in the morning on his way to the shul for the morning services.
He also unlocked the heavy lock and opened the heavy portals that led to the store. Now you saw the black and yellow arrows that symbolized the cigarette stores in the Austrian Empire. Of course, the Imperial eagle was another state sign that appeared on governmental institutions. The children opened the glass door somewhat later when they came to open the store for business. Once, early in a winter morning, on his way to shul for morning services, Mendel saw the lady water carrier of Korczyn on the ground frozen. She was a Christian women and laid motionless next to the cigarette store. He put down his talit and phylacteries on the snow and started to administer first aid to the woman. Yendzej Ganet passed by with his sled and Mendel stopped him. Both men lifted the drunken women onto the sled and took her to Joel Ettinger's saloon opposite the kehilla. Here she was placed on a bench and given a few shots of vodka. Slowly she regained consciousness. The story was told later by the sled driver to Shulem Weissman who repeated it to me. He also added that such Jews are no longer to be found. Of course, he was unaware that to save a human being, the talit and the phylacteries play a second role.
p.271, picture of Mendel Weissman.
Benyamin was poorer than his brothers. He dealt in apples. He visited the orchards with the first sign of spring and purchased the future harvest of apples. If his guess was correct he made money otherwise he lost. When the apples ripened, Benyamin hired a guard to watch the apples so that nobody picked them before he organized the picking crews. He spent many a sleepless night until the harvest was in. During the Austrian Imperial days, the harvesting and selling of apples proceeded smoothly since Benyamin had good connections and made some money to support his family. Benyamin also sold small onions that were seeded in the ground and grew in size. He always had many bags of large and small onions ready for the onion merchants. He of course always expected to get a higher price while the buyers always offered smaller bids. Finally compromises were reached and he made some money. He was not the most successful businessman, for his oldest son on reaching maturity left for Germany. He also wanted to avoid the draft. That was not the most respectable achievement for a Jewish religious youngster. The second son, Hersh, also left for Germany once he reached maturity..
Benyamin's apartment was located in the public bathhouse passage where the beginners cheder was located. It contained a kitchen and a large room where Benyamin, his wife Miriam and seven children [four girls and three sons] lived. To reach the apartment, one had to follow a long corridor from the passage where on the right side lived the old cantor Wolf, on the left side lived Feiwish, in the middle there were some rooms, following to the left was Benyamin's flat. All the entrances to the rooms were from the long corridor to the other side where Yona Peltz had his home near the small river I remember that the corridor was dark. After the cantor's flat, lived his son in law Yaacov Itzhak, in a flat that was long and narrow with a window that hardly provided light or air for the family of three children; two sons and a daughter. During WWI, the Russian and Austrian jockeyed for military positions in Korczyn. The Russians left a live shell in his flat. On entering the place, Yaacov pulled the cord from the shell and it exploded. He was blinded, crippled and shortly died in terrible pains. This was WWI, of course no comparison to what happened during WWII.
Benyamin was an institution in Korczyn. He had children in Germany, Switzerland and a son Luzer in the USA. He himself never left the township. His children supported him in his old age until the Germans killed him. He contributed a great deal to the community. He had a nice and powerful voice that carried throughout the shul when he conducted services. He usually conducted the third meal services at the shul. He placed his hand to the right cheek and would sing various hymns appropriate to the third meal. Some of them invoked a mystical fervor that implied a departure of the sanctity of the Shabbath and the imminent arrival of daily reality especially for people that struggled to meet ends. Most of these participants were people that barely made it. The more affluent members of the community did not attend the shul third meals. They remained at home where they partook of the third meal with their neighbors and ended the Shabbath with prayers and the lighting of candles. The rabbi of Korczyn did likewise. I am certain that there were other singers at the shul meals but I do not remember them. The outstanding man at these meals was Benyamin Rubin. When an injustice took place, the voice of Benyamin was heard but nothing vengeful. He was always the secretary of the Hevra Kadisha or the burial society of Korczyn. He was already 80 years old when the Germans killed him, his daughter Tzivia, her husband Matitiyahu Gleicher and their children Naphtali, Toibe Ita, and Hersh with their families. Frieda Haya remained alive in Switzerland, Zelde in Israel and Luzer in the USA. The children of Benyamin that remained alive should memorialize their families and the six million Jews. Nobody remained alive from the brothers of Benyamin Rubin. Respect their memory.
I was attached to Korczyn and was unable to break the spell of the place. For 16 years I lived here and dreamt many dreams and planned many plans that failed. I ascribed all the failures to the fact that I was an orphan, nice rationalization. Full of winter hopes for the visit home for Passover, I attended a Purim party at the home of Rabbi Eliezar where I met David Ringelheim who was a Hassid of the rabbi, I was very pleased to meet him and asked him whether he saw my mother. He inquired whether I would be going to Rymanow for Passover. The inquiry struck me very funny until I realized that my mother married to Rymanow. I burst out of the room and wept beyond control. My own mother did not bother to notify me of her intentions. All my plans were destroyed. Finally, I stopped crying and took control of myself. I do not recall whether I returned to the party or went home. My situation as an apprentice was far from satisfactory but I tried to make the best of it. According to my contract that I wrote in Yiddish, I was supposed to receive a certificate after one year's apprentice in accordance with the Austrian law. For there were apprenticeships that lasted three years. My teacher, Leizer Garfunkel, was paid 100 guilden. My mother took a loan by mortgaging the inherited flat left by my father. It was a difficult experience for me to be away from home. But the fact that I was going to be home for Passover made the time pass faster. The present news struck a deep blow. For all my plans were ruined. I did not want to stay with the owners for Passover for this would have lowered my standing in their eyes and they would have taken pith on the orphan. This situation I had to avoid if I wanted to retain my dignity as an apprentice. My mother certainly did not help the situation by keeping it a secret. I do not know how my brothers discovered the news since we never talked about it. Still I decided to leave the family and went to Korczyn for Passover. I visited the neighbors, Hersh and Liebe Katz and decided to stay with them. I did not have too much money since my tips did not amount to much. I offered the Katz family two guilden and they accepted. Thus I was left with two guilden in my pocket.
In Korczyn, I discovered that my mother stopped eating in order to economize and reduce her debts. As active as she was when the children were home she now became apathetic and tried to cut corners. The neighbors saw the situation and began to pressure her to remarry. They found for her a nice well to do elderly widower, Mordechai Elias from Rymanow. She was never a strong character and the pressure was great. Besides, she felt that she should marry and help her situation. How my mother discovered that I was in Korczyn, I do not know for there were no telegrams or correspondence. Yet, the first or second day of Hol Hamoed Passover, I received an invitation to visit her and my brothers in Rymanow. I visited my mother and met my brothers and my stepfather and his entire family that consisted of grandchildren and great grandchildren. They all treated my mother as a real mother. Later I met Israel Shalom Nochmales who I describe later in the book and he told me that Mordechai gave lots of charity. This impressed me and I respected him for it. We children never took advantage of his financial situation and he treated as very well when we came for Passover or Sukkoth. When I was already in the USA, in the thirties, my mother passed away. Mordechai passed away a few years later, killed by a horse and buggy out of control. He was almost ninety when he passed away. His goodness and his helpfulness to the needy must be officially recorded. I also want to take this opportunity to thank David Ringelheim for the news that he brought me that day in Reishe and I was too selfish to accept it. The fact remained that Mordechai was a decent human being. Wolf Ringelheim, David's son that now lives in the USA, would certainly have more to say on his family.
Shmayahu's second son, Yossel also dealt with transporting goods to and from Kros. But he only had one horse and handled smaller loads. Frequently he also transported passengers. Occasionally he went to Rymanow and elsewhere with passengers. The ride was not comfortable since he pushed in as many passengers as the coach would be able to hold. The people sat where they found places. Yossel saw to it that the coach was packed solid. He himself was well built and his horse was massive. On occasion, the passengers pushed the coach, especially uphill, for there was a mountain before Krosno. Yossel's clothing did not reveal wealth. On the contrary, his clothing was old and worn but clean. He had his own home and provided for his family. Moshe, the third son of Shmayahu, had a simple coach. He only transported passengers to Kros and back. His coach was primitive and his horse was weak. He barely managed to get the people to their destination. He had a small house with a thatched roof and managed to scrape a living. I remember that Shmayahu always used to clean Moshe's horse in the market since he neglected to do it. The other brothers always kept their horses in excellent condition.
One day, Dworah received her tickets for America and she left Korczyn. Chaim soon married and took over Dworah's place that consisted of a kitchen and large room. Shmayahu remained with the young couple. Several years later, Dworah brought her father to the USA. But he was too old to work and there were no horse businesses in the area so Shmayahu was bored. He went from house to house to visit people from Korczyn but they worked or were busy. He entered many homes without a mezuzah on the door. This was a sacrilege to him. He was not a scholar but knew the Jewish customs of Korczyn. Except for prayers in the shul, he had no other things to do. He felt a stranger in a strange land. Everything was not kosher, even the sidewalks were treif or non-kosher. Finally, his daughter sent him back to Korczyn after two years in the USA. I remember when he returned to Korczyn and brought suspenders that Shlomo sent for his brother. Suspenders were the in things in those days. Shmayahu was not pleased with Shlomo's behavior in the USA since he lapsed in his religious practices. He accepted the need for change of clothing but saw no reason for lapse in Jewish practice. Finally, Shmayahu returned to Korczyn and lived with his son Chaim and occasionally received some money from his daughter Dworah, so that he should not fall a burden to his family. He made himself useful by tending to the horses of his sons. He had a feeling where he was needed and appeared. He was very familiar with horses and even wild horses were no match for him. He knew how to handle them. When I left for the USA, he was already 75, totally gray but carried himself well and his simple clothing gave him statue. Honor his memory.
Table of Contents
JewishGen, Inc. makes no representations regarding the accuracy of
the translation. The reader may wish to refer to the original material
for verification.
JewishGen is not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in the original work and cannot rewrite or edit the text to correct inaccuracies and/or omissions.
Our mission is to produce a translation of the original work and we cannot verify the accuracy of statements or alter facts cited.
Korczyna, Poland Yizkor Book Project JewishGen Home Page
Copyright © 1999-2019 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 17 Dec 2001 by MGH