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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲

@josh412.com

4.1K followers 3.1K following 7.1K posts

Photosynthetic software developer & dog enthusiast from Pittsburgh 🌱 I post flowers photos from walks with my dog Macy 🐕 Also post about Judaism, Pittsburgh, heavy metal and sometimes computer he/ him 🌱 https://Josh412.com 🌵side project: @skygram.app 🌲

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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · Dec 2

Josh on Bluesky, table of contents v1.3
🌸 Flower posting bsky.app/profile/josh...
🐩 Macy posting bsky.app/profile/josh...
✡️ Torah posting bsky.app/profile/josh...
🌲 @skygram.app Bluesky photo feeds client
🦋 How I Bluesky thread bsky.app/profile/josh...
🌼 Pittsburgh News feed bsky.app/profile/did:...

Golden doodle looking up at the camera while walking.

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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 4h

I, like Nate Silver, my programming needs are somewhat unusual (content management systems for publishing, websites, etc)

Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 16h

Good morning 🌱🌼☀️

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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 1d

Good morning 🌱💮🌸

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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 2d

Good morning 🌱🌸🌺

Pink zinnia flower with a few wilt spots

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Reposted by Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲

lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 3d

microsoft product (begging, pleading): save this document to my documents?

me: save to desktop

microsoft (twitching, shaking) this jpeg. save to pictures?

me: save to desktop

microsoft (weeping, throwing up): this email attachment... downloads?

me: desktop

130 580 4.3K

Reposted by Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲

Janet Hill @saskajanet.bsky.social · 15d

Teeny tiny anesthesiologist on duty

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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 3d

Good morning 🌱🌸🌺

Two pink zinnia flowers overlapping each other. One big, one small. Big one has small wilt spots

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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 4d

Good morning 🌱🌸🌼

Yellow flower and a similar one that is wilted

Reposted by Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲

Linda Holmes @lindaholmes.bsky.social · 5d

Today my dog had an important meeting.

My dog at daycare, nose to nose with a couple other good doggos.

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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 5d

Interesting experiment in “what if instead of playing stupid games, candidates talked to people directly?”
www.404media.co/can-you-win-...

Screenshot from Can You Win a Congressional Seat Without Social Media? By Emanuel Maiberg from 404 Media

them feel alone. It makes them feel crazy, it makes them feel overwhelmed. And actually sitting and talking with the people in your community about what you can do to make it better is, I think, an antidote for a lot of that feeling of overwhelm and disassociation that people have right now.

Screenshot from Can You Win a Congressional Seat Without Social Media? By Emanuel Maiberg from 404 Media

I ask people what they think about my position on social media, and the number of people, especially millennials, say “I wish I could throw my phone out the window.” It seems to be really the political consultants and people who work in politics who are the most opposed to this idea, in part, because, for a lot of people, it's a low lift way to get involved. I think we have to ask ourselves whether it's actually an effective way of making a difference right now. I don't believe that that's the case in 2025

Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 5d

Good morning 🌱🌸🌺

Pink zinnia flower, with a few spots of wilting

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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 6d

Jerry, do you get to keep the madness, or do they make you give it back now?

Reposted by Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲

Annalee Newitz @annaleen.bsky.social · 6d

Apropos of nothing, I would like to point out that large companies whose business model is "serve words to the public" will typically pay between US $.10 and $3.00 per word. So when you give words to a company for free, you are in fact paying them a LOT of money.

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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 6d

This parhsa has the final mitzvah in Torah that everyone has to write a Sefer Torah, so we should understand the entire Torah and not just this song is our song that is supposed to be different in every generation.

outorah.org/p/93862

Screenshot of Torah as Song by Rabbi Eliyahu Safran on OUTorah.org

The Ari z’l taught that the soul of each and every Jew is rooted in a letter in the Torah, that each letter has spiritual power because each originates at the Heavenly throne, the same place where all souls originate, and thus each is linked to a letter.

We are the notes of this shirah! We are the letters of Torah! This is why a hachnasat sefer Torah is so deep and personal, for it is mine. It is me. Each of us belongs at this table; each of us has a mystical role; each of us contributes to the harmony of creation.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests as much when he implores us to understand that the 613th mitzvah is a duty to make Torah “new in each generation.” To accomplish this, it is not enough to simply learn Torah. We must feel Torah. We must be Torah.

It is true, Rabbi Sacks says, that “…Judaism is a religion of words, and yet whenever the language of Judaism aspires to the spiritual it breaks into song, as if the words themselves sought escape from the gravitational pull of finite meanings.” Music, he tells us, is the language of the soul.

Screenshot of Torah as Song by Rabbi Eliyahu Safran on OUTorah.org

Chazal however, (Sanhedrin 21b) do not understand Moshe’s words to refer only to Haazinu. This posuk is the source for the final mitzvah in Torah – the 613th mitzvah – obligating one to write a Sefer Torah himself. It follows then that it is the entire Torah and not just Haazinu that is our “song.”

If “shirah” were Haazinu, we would be obligated only to write parashat Haazinu, not the entire Torah. But we are commanded to write a sefer Torah, even if we had received a Torah from our father, or father’s father and we are to make sure that not even one letter is missing!

It is this Torah, this complete Torah, that is the shirah we must write.

Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 6d

This parsha uses the word for Rock 7 times, always to refer to God. I was surprised to learn the word only is only used 6 times before that.

ajr.edu/parashat-haa...

Screenshot of Parashat Ha’azinu – 5785 Like a Rock by Rabbi Greg Schindler on AJR.edu

“The Rock (הַצּוּר֙ – Ha-Tsur), complete/perfect are G-d’s actions”(Deut. 32:4)

Until now, the word “tsur” – with the meaning “rock” – has only appeared six times in the Torah.[1] In Ha’azinu alone, Moses makes seven such references.[2] When something occurs seven times in Torah, we should take notice, as seven alludes to completeness.

What does it mean to be a “Rock”?

A Rock is just and true:
“The Rock… all [G-d’s] ways are justice: a G-d of truth and without iniquity, just and right.” (Deut. 32:4)

Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 6d

There is a format that all other songs in the Torah are written in, but not this one. The other format is brick overlapping brick. — strong and sturdy — used for Song of the Sea. This is a less strong, bricks stacked linearly for a song that rehashes all the curses.

www.chabad.org/parshah/arti...

Screenshot from Why is Parshat Ha'azinu Written in Two Columns? By Mordechai Rubin On Chabad.org

The Talmudic Sages established special formats for writing the “songs” (poetic sections) in Scripture. The general rule is:

All the songs in Scripture are written in the form of a half-brick over a whole brick, and a whole brick over a half-brick, with the exception of this one (a reference to the section of the Megillah which records the death of Haman’s sons) and the kings of Canaan (Joshua 12), which are written half-brick over half-brick and whole brick over whole brick.2

In simpler terms, most biblical songs are written in an alternating pattern of staggered lines—a short line above a long line, then a long line above a short line—resembling interlocking bricks. This is the layout used, for example, for the Song of the Sea.3 The Talmud points out two notable exceptions—the list of Haman’s sons in the Book of Esther4 and the Canaanite kings in the Book of Joshua5—which are written in a fully aligned format, short over short, long over long, forming two columns.

Screenshot from Why is Parshat Ha'azinu Written in Two Columns? By Mordechai Rubin On Chabad.org

In the section of Talmud cited above, the Sages provide a reason for the two-column format used for the sons of Haman:

What is the reason (that these songs are written in this anomalous fashion)? So that they should never rise from their downfall.17

Meaning that just as a wall built brick upon brick, without any overlap, cannot endure, so these individuals have fallen never to rise again. Or, as the Ran explains, when a wall is perfectly even on both sides, with no protrusions, nothing further can be added to it. Only when there are jutting edges—like the teeth of a wall—can more be built upon it. In this case, the uniformity of the structure indicates a downfall from which there is no recovery.

The Ran continues to explain why Ha’azinu is also written this way: since it “speaks of the downfall of the wicked,” for example, it contains verses about G‑d’s vengeance against Israel’s enemies, “He will avenge the blood of His servants … and wreak vengeance upon His adversaries.”18 In this respect, Ha’azinu shares the theme of the downfall of evildoers, similar to the lists of Haman’s sons. Ran therefore asserts that Ha’azinu is also written in the aligned “brick over brick” pattern for the same symbolic reason: to show that the downfall of the wicked described in the song will never be rebuilt.

Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 6d

www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy....

Deuteronomy 32

Hearken, O heaven as I declare, let the earth hear my mouth’s...

www.sefaria.org

Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 6d

Teachings I learned about parsha Ha’azinu, the second to last one where Moses teaches the people a song and then goes up the mountain to look at the land before he dies. The song is written in two columns, and can be read together or independently. This creates one song with two different voices.

Page 272 of Torah Queeries by Johos Singer

And although the poetry, lyricism, and singing may be new to the Children of Israel, the fundamental message is not: they have been selected for a special role in God's plan for humanity (Deut. 32:8, Ex. 19:4), and they should be grateful; if they do not behave themselves and prove themselves worthy, they will be assailed by their enemies without God's protection, but if they are good they will be rewarded (Deut. 32:19-25, Ex. 20:5-6); they must remember their deliverance from Egypt and remain vigilant in their identity as God's children (Deut. 32:6, 10-12, Ex. 20:2-3). And just for good measure, Moses calls them crooked, twisted, base, and witless (Deut. 32:5-6) and warns them that God finds them terribly irritating (Ex. 32:17-21).

Since the content is a rehash of what has come before, let us look for significance beyond the plain meaning of the verses, in the graphic and literary structure. The two columns of text might represent two different voices. One voice is that of the generation who left Egypt, and the other is the generation who was born in freedom and who will enter the Promised Land. Visually there is no bridge—the two parallel columns of text are separated by empty space. But the graphic layout is not merely a visual metaphor. The text itself can read either as one very emphatic poem or two reflexive poems.? The sofer, the scribe, who laid out this text literally split the text into twins. Each line contains two versets (which are pretty hard to miss with that gaying empty space between them) that are repetitive but not redundant. Robert Alter describes this technique:

Far more prevalent in biblical poetry than incremental repetition is what might be characterized as "hidden" repetition_-that is. the very common maneuver of ellinsis in which a word in the first verset, usually a verb, governs the naralla lauce in the cocond verset as well. ... It is used to introduce an increment of meaning

Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 6d

Good morning 🌱🌸🌺

Pink zinnia, kinda curled in at petals, perfect yellow circle of stamens

Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 7d

Imagine having a PhD in podcast studies.

Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 7d

Good morning to these fun little rainbow friends growing next to our roses 🌱🌈🌹

Rainbow passion fruit flower growing on ground next to bottoms of trellis

Many Rainbow passion fruit flowers growing on ground next to bottoms of trellis

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Reposted by Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲

Tzfardea Tzedek 🐸 @jsx.bsky.social · 8d

It's *literally the first prayer* of Yom Kippur services in which we acknowledge that not everyone in the congregation agrees with each other, some of us may even existentially disagree with each other, but we're atoning in community anyway because it's that important.

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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 8d

Good morning 🌱🌺🍃

Purple flower, growing next to a dry stem

Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 10d

Good morning 🌱🌼☀️

White and yellow daisy flower with little bee on it

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Josh Pollock 🌱🎃🌲 @josh412.com · 11d

Screencap of Tim Robinson in I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson where Tim Robinson says “He can hit. He can hit you “