Who, How and Why Fish Love
The most significant difference between people and fish is only skin deep. We humans are covered in a thick sheath of dead cells, while the outermost layer of the fish is composed of living, slime-secreting cells.
Most scientists wave away the difference as an outcome of our terrestrial lifestyle. Cells require an aqueous environment to live in, so our skin acts as a wrapper, keeping the wet stuff in. Fish cells secrete slime, so the story goes, to lubricate themselves against the water, protect from microbes and form a tight waterproof seal around themselves.
But a different idea, originally proposed by Aldous Huxley has, to my knowledge, never been given full consideration by biologists. In The Perennial Philosophy, Huxley argues that slime substitutes for spiritual distance from the Divine Presence.
NIH funding is tight, I thought I'd try that one out here first.
Most scientists wave away the difference as an outcome of our terrestrial lifestyle. Cells require an aqueous environment to live in, so our skin acts as a wrapper, keeping the wet stuff in. Fish cells secrete slime, so the story goes, to lubricate themselves against the water, protect from microbes and form a tight waterproof seal around themselves.
But a different idea, originally proposed by Aldous Huxley has, to my knowledge, never been given full consideration by biologists. In The Perennial Philosophy, Huxley argues that slime substitutes for spiritual distance from the Divine Presence.
The slime of personal and emotional love is remotely similar to the water of the Godhead's spiritual being, but of inferior quality and (precisely because the love is emotional and therefore personal) of insufficient quality. Having, by their voluntary ignorance, wrong-doing and wrong being, caused the divine springs to dry up, human beings [Here, of course, he means to include fish. -Ed.] can do something to mitigate the horrors of their situation by "keeping one another wet with their slime" [He's quoting Chuang Tzu, a Taoist - Ed.To my mind then, the slime that oozes from the integument of the fish is no mere physical barrier, but serves a lofty spiritual purpose. It is for self-love, a narcissism made necessary by their choice of an amoral lifestyle which distances them from the Universal Compassion.
NIH funding is tight, I thought I'd try that one out here first.
- sheikh X at 8:24 AM
9 Comments:
there is a notion in the jewish mystical tradition that before adam and eve transgressed God's command they were wrapped in "garments of light." generally, midrashic sources identify this with "something akin to a fingernail" and the superstitious among us often keep that in mind while they gaze at their fingernails during havdalah. in the light of your groundbreaking research, perhaps it is more appropriate to consider this in terms of the scales of a fish.
actually, another widespread notion in jewish mysticism connects the souls of the righteous with fish- so perhaps there is room to develop this correlation further.
also, in their well-known commentary on the book of genesis my children have been quoted as saying: "Hashem made everything" and "I see fish". Scholars are still hard at work unraveling the deeper ramifications.
Midrash is a collection of nonsense generated while on pot or plum brandy (the real reason for the popularity of Hassidism, the Christian pseudo-Jewish curent).
If you want a new midrash, follow this recipe:
- bring a bottle of arak to the corner falafal guy
- ask him what he thinks about your topic of choice an hour later
- market the story as the work of Bablyon 5th century rav Abubenetton or from Berdichev early 19th century Tzaddik Yisroel Ben-Slivovitz.
"Midrash is a collection of nonsense generated while on pot or plum brandy."
Yes, and as such, Midrash is the equivalent of the "Discussion" section of most science papers.
We don't treat the discussion sections as holy.
that's probably because most scientists are not holy
No one is holy but God. No rabbi, sage or whatever is holy. Whoever thinks any man or woman is holy should go to a church or to a hassidic synagogue (it's the same thing anyway).
To be a Jew means to know the separation between man and God is absolute.
Midrash comes from various men who - very much unlike the brilliant Talmud sages - were overwhelmingly imbecile and bigoted (the sorry kind that plagues the halls of AishHaTorah, Jeff Seidel-style, or the local fascists of Shas), not from God.
"We don't treat the discussion sections as holy."
And accordingly midrash is pretty low in the exegetical hierarchy.
i prefer to use "Midrash" as a catch-all for homiletic literature in the rabbinic tradition. it clarifies the source for the uninitiated and avoids the pitfalls of charlatanism and hassidism (as if there is a difference) by not referring to a source as "kabbalistic".
In the event, my sources in the comment above were agaddic passages in the talmud, the zohar, the zohar again, and my kids. Not one source was actually taken from the midrash, so sorry about that. And since Victor so esteems the talmud (according to his post above) probably abhors the Zohar (ibid) and certainly loves my kids, he can just read the first and last parts of the comment and skip over the middle.
in another note, the sources actually properly known as the "midrash" include 3 major tracts and numerous minor ones. the sources cited are predominantly the same figures from the talmud, and the attribution is much more reliable than in the Zohar- so don't even go there. in light of that, unless you intend to canonize Rabenu Ashi, you should consider that the midrash was intended to serve some intelligent purpose. Maimonides has some notions about that, and I'm pretty sure you all respect him.
i am holier than thou. wookies are inherently holy.
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