Angels On Head Of Pin Mixed Dancing

The long-term implications of the discovery remain unclear.

Jerusalem, January 29 – Scandal gripped the ultra-orthodox world this week following a discovery that the celestial beings who serve as the subject of many conceptual inquiries perform gavottes, horas, and other rhythmic movements set to music with no separation of the sexes, in violation of community norms.

Deans of august institutions of orthodox learning moved quickly to issue provisional bans on the works of such revered figures as Maimonides, the Maharal of Prague Rabbi Yehuda Löw, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato, Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, and other pillars of Jewish thought, lest students engage in contemplation of male and female angels dancing on the head of a pin with no mechitza, the barrier that customarily divides men from women on the dance floor at orthodox celebrations. The long-term implications of the discovery remain unclear.

The discovery occurred by accident, explained Rabbi Mendel Fakhnyuct, Mashgiach Ruchani (“spiritual supervisor”) at Yeshivas Rovetzes Tachas, where the revelation occurred on Sunday. “Some bochurim were looking up a passage in the Maharal – for greater clarity on an iyun sugya in Gittin, of course; chas v’sholom they would learn anything but g’mora l’chatchila! – and found that the mashmois of part of N’siv HaTorah in N’sivos Olam suggests that some of the angels are male and some are female.”

“They came running to me to report what they found,” continued the shaken man. “Well, you can’t be too careful with such things, because g’dorim in arayos are gufei Torah, practically yehoreg v’al yaavor. I was even prepared to order the students to burn all copies of the Maharal’s works, plus those associated with or derived from them, such as the Tanya of the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, but such a drastic move I knew would require input from the rest of the yeshiva administration, so we haven’t done that. Yet.”

Other institutions followed suit by quarantining the works of the aforementioned Rabbis, plus several others for good measure. “You never know with those philosophical types,” observed a kollel avreich at the Mirrer Yeshiva. “Everyone knows Rav [Avraham Yitzchak HaKohen] Kuk is posul because of Zionism, but that still leaves who knows how many others who may have been infected by the virus of the very idea of mixed dancing. I shudder even at the mention of it, rachmono litzlan.”

Analysts predict that the orthodox world will resolve the matter by issuing new editions of the Maharal’s writings that omit the problematic passage, and place a ban on anyone who studies the older, corrupt version.

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