Bear in mind that this Monday night - Tuesday is the Jewish holiday of Purim, known for pranks (also costumes, mass exchanges of junk food, drunkenness, and other good stuff). It’s also in the month of Adar, traditionally pictorially represented by a fish. I’m pretty sure this is somebody’s Purim prank grown way, way too big. FWIW, my family, my synogogue, and all of my friends think this is the funniest thing they’ve heard in a while, with some embarrassment that something this stupid has gotten so much press.
“You know I’ve been working with the government, right, Tony?”
I wonder if Eddie Vedder has an opinion?
I’ve actually been paying quite a lot of attention. Frankly, most of the stuff discussed on this board does not “deserve” a lot of attention. To each his own.
The NYT, or any other news source, cannot confirm anything, other than the fact that they’ve gotten it wrong again.
In general, all articles about Orthodox Jewry will tend to contain all sorts of incorrect information, as outsiders writing the articles fail to understand the nuances of a different society. Most likely this applies to any other non-Western society as well. In particular, there is a tendency to translate concepts in other societies into Western concepts that seem superficially similar, and these often miss the mark by a wide margin.
In fact, in general, many people who have a specialty in a particular area will tell you that the media generally gets it wrong in their area of expertise. Should be a sign that caution is warranted.
In this particular case, if I might speculate a bit, I would guess that there is a mixing of metaphors going on. It is likely that someone said that people believe God sent this strange phenomenon to sent us a message (“God is trying to tell us…”) and this was misinterpreted as being that God was actually speaking from within the fish. Actually it is nothing different that if someone said “such-and-such occurrence was God telling me” etc.
Not at all. The idea that some Yiddish speaking Hasid would conspire with his Spanish speaking assistant to spread a story, that they have cleverly agreed to dispute the interpretation of to lend additional credence to, is itself unlikely, IMHO. Besides, as mentioned earlier, I’ve spoken to people who know people who know the guy and they say he is not at all that type. But my main objection is that the guy had to be rushed to the emergency room after severing part of his finger. That would have to be one dedicated practical joker.
Word is that the leader of the Skverer Hasidim has said that the guy is a ba’al dimyon (overly imaginative person). But this founders on the testimony of Luis.
This story hit the mainstream media now, but it actually took place over a month and a half ago.
Here in my hometown, the local fish-store has been running ads for weeks “the fish the whole town is talking about”.
“But my main objection is that the guy had to be rushed to the emergency room after severing part of his finger. That would have to be one dedicated practical joker.”
Yeah I thought of that. But it’s perfectly possible that the finger was injured anyway that day and they added that part of the story just to make the story better. I have no problem believing that the two guys worked together. After all the story is not that complicated. And they are boss and employee so they know each other well. You may be right that the guy is not “that type” but the mildest people do crazy things once in a while. In any event I find a prank a lot more believable than some kind of supernatural occurence.
Talk about your carpy deum!
Daniel
Good to know everything is in perspective here!!
We’re on the verge of WWIII and some guy on acid thought he heard a speaking fish!!
Lay of the weed!!
Armageddon my arse!!!
If God were going to speak though a fish, I think He would not choose a carp. He’d have a twenty-foot Great White Shark put on a sportscoat and walk out on the set of “Late Night With David Letterman” on his tailfins to deliver the Big Message.
Wouldn’t have to choose a Jewfish?
I loved this story, which hit the UK papers yesterday. Bit of a shame the fish wasn’t a Sole…
Personally I think the fact that they killed the fish is highly significant, and extremely alarming, especially in view of world events. This could have been Man’s last chance to prove he’s not irredeemably irreverent. Oh well, too late now…