Not cleaning for Passover, of course. That's for last minuting like usual. I do, however, have the perfect retelling of the Passover experience for this modern age:
The 2010 Facebook Haggadah
Enjoy whilst you eat your leavened or unleavened bread!
anyone reading this still thinks you can negotiate with the Palestinians in general and Hamas specifically, I point you to this article:
Rayyan Trained His Kids to Die
If you still think you can discuss peace with a man who will murder his own children to make sure they're martyrs, you have a very odd view of peace.
I'd like to wish my three remaining readers a joyous and meaningful New Year. Unlike some other persuasions, we Hebrews use the turning of the calendar as an opportunity for prayer, introspection, and above all repentance. Like all humans (shocking as it may seem) I do have my faults. This time is meant for me to reflect on those failures and attempt to repent them and correct them.
Part of that, of course, involves asking forgiveness from those we have hurt, intentionally or not. So I ask pardon from any of you I may have offended.
Naturally it's also a time to ask God for blessing for the coming year, and I certainly have some specific requests of the Lord. I don't know how well I've done over the last two days, but I certainly prayed with purpose this year. What will be will be, and at the end of it all we depend heavily on God's mercy and patience with us weak-willed humans.
Holiday itself was nice - out for lunch yesterday, guests today. A beef roast referred to locally as brick roast was outstanding - cooked in red wine, low & slow, and I think I had six slices. It went over well with oldest child as well. Lots of prayer, shofar blowing, too much food - does it get any better?
So happy New Year all around, and may we all be inscribed in the Book of Life.
extremely antsy about the situation that's developing, and I expect I'll be totally nutty by the time I can take any active steps to find out what's going on.
I imagine the Lord is making me sweat this out so I'll learn some patience, but I can't say I'm enjoying it. The paranoid side is waiting for the whole thing to blow up, the hopeful part just wants it done so I can proceed. Neither side is handling the wait very well.
There's a Jewish saying - "Hashem Yirachem" - God will have mercy, that is often used when putting yourself in His capable hands and trusting that He knows what's best. I've been using it a lot lately, and I mean it most of the time. Mostly I am accepting of this particular hand, but the potential for success is pretty high, and the failure of this one would be devastating.
What will be will be, but I admit that I'm not learning the patience part as well as I probably should.
Maybe it's time the North came back to carpetbag - wall-to-wall, and believe me it'll be wholesale prices or better:
Group dangles $50K for Jews who move to Ala. town
Get that deep-fryer ready, Possum Papa, and be sure to clean out all the treyf. 50,000 smackers doesn't go far up here, but I imagine in Dothan, AL we can get a whole lotta corned beef to deepfry with that money.
Terry sent me this link from Iowahawk the other day, where the good Raptor describes his brief visit to Postville, IA and the surprising accumulation of Orthodox Jews floating around that end of Flyover Country. I've known about this group for a while - they've established a major kosher meatpacking plant out there, presumably to be closer to the cows.
In any event, I mentioned to Terry that there's a book out called Boychicks in the Hood, in which author Robert Eisenberg describes his visit out there to see the Jews in Iowa. Which led me to coin what I think is a new term to describe noticeably Orthodox Jews living in rural parts of America:
Hayseedic: adj. - pertaining to or describing an ultra-Orthodox person living and working in traditionally rural, non-Jewish areas of the United States. cf. RebNeck, Yankel Reb.
I've been going to sleep too late, I'm busy at work, and I think my life is out of control. Blogging has taken a backseat to trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing. There are any number of balls in the air, and while nobody's life is at stake, I'm having a hard time keeping everything straight.
Boohoo. Poor me.
To make up for it, below the fold you will see several fun Pesach-related news items, the last two are courtesy of my friend Stupid.
The first apparently puts to rest a story that was floating around here:
Kosher l’Pesach Gasoline?
There were rumors around here about that, and it sounded so bizarrely ridiculous that I was prepared to believe somebody actually wanted to remove the ethanol from gas to make it kosher for Pesach. Kitniyot may be owned on Pesach, and I believe you can benefit from it, so it struck just the right tone of a crazy Hebrew who wanted to be holier than the rest of us. I'm almost disappointed that it's fake.
Next, some genuine craziness from Genuinely Crazy Jews:
NY bus converted into oven for matzos
Leave it to some nutty chasid from Monsey to decide that a flaming school bus 10 feet from the house with an illegally tapped gas line was a good idea. Think of it as the Partridge Family with peyos, unleavened bread, and a complete disregard for safety and building codes.
And finally, thanks to the Israeli Chronic Lobby, we get this one:
Israel group nixes pot on Passover
Once again the specter of Kitniyot appears. Loosely translated as legumes, this is essentially an Eastern European minhag that is meant by non-fried people to refer to corn, beans, peanuts, and various other foodstuffs. These items are, again, not forbidden for ownership during Pesach by halacha, and I guess one can argue about benefiting from it.
So I guess the only thing to take from this is that Pot is essentially acceptable to those who eat Kitniyot during Pesach, and that one should be extremely careful during attacks of the munchies to eat only kosher L'Pesach certified snacks.
We report, you decide.
Thy name is Queen Rania:
She asks "What are you doing to empower women in your community?"
A wonderful question coming from a faith where women are routinely abused, neglected, etc. As a counterbalance, may I suggest this post from Breath of the Beast?
Look, you're a cute chick and all, but spare me the lecture, OK honey? When the women in your part of the world can go out in the street by themselves and not get beaten or raped, we can talk about what the rest of us are doing for women.
I think worth looking at - Breath of the Beast. Tough reading sometimes, but important reading is often difficult to face.
Hat tip to the Corner.
Yesterday began with oldest child's Siddur party/play at school. Each first-grader is given their very own prayer book to keep, which they will use to learn the prayers as well as Hebrew. It involved a lot of singing, and each child had a short paragraph to say in Hebrew. Not only did I borrow a video camera for the event, but we even managed to get front row seats near where she was, so I had a good view. I have many doubts about my skillz as a videographer, but nobody expects academy award winning cinematography at a first grade performance.
She was wonderful, as were most of the other kids. The most rewarding part for me was watching her after she received her siddur. Like most of the other kids, she was sitting on the floor, poring over the text and reading to herself. It was all unrehearsed - apparently this was built up so well by the teachers the kids couldn't wait to look it over for themselves. Her teacher actually saw us at another school event last week and said she had mentioned something in class in passing and they all picked up on it - I saw it in action as oldest went right to that page to look it over.
My parents even made it, which is tremendously impressive given that it started at 9AM, which is the middle of the night for my dad. I'm glad they did. The whole thing was done so nicely, and it reassures me that we're spending all these gazillions of dollars on yeshiva for a good reason. Mrs. said to me in the car on the way home that she's even more pleased that we decided to send the kids to yeshiva. Yes, we could save money by sending them to public school, but this experience of learning the language and faith of our people is so much richer in this environment. We really like the school a lot, and she is clearly learning to be the Jew we want her to be.
Nice job, kiddo, and may this be the start of a deep and abiding love for Torah, Tefila, and the faith of our ancestors.
that cartoons are among the highest form of art. Apparently that's not all they are:
After the Danish Cartoon Controversy
As often happens in these sorts of cases, the highly offended "religious leaders" turn out to be shameless, self-promoting hucksters. Public indignation over manufactured controversies usually has a short shelf life. You wonder at what will happen when the "muslim street" suddenly realizes their promised virgins in paradise turn out to be yet another case of snake oil sold by charlatans.
(Hat tip to Michael Rubin at the Corner)
Get it? Wrap? Oh, I crack me up.
Chanukah was very nice. The Sunday of Chanukah was insanely busy. In this order: We had a bris (circumcision ceremony) to go to in the morning; Youngest had a birthday party to go to; oldest went to a Chanukah party at one of the local synagogues; we went out to Mrs. Skinny's relations in Westchester for a Chanukah party; back home for a Chanukah party locally. And we skipped my brother's Chanukah party in Brooklyn. All in all a busy day. Naturally, oldest got sick as a dog that night (I blame the latkes and donuts she ate all day), but at least she had off of school the next day. Youngest was kind enough to wait to get sick until Monday night.
Both were thus home with Mrs. on Tuesday, while I was off gallivanting at another all day meeting. They did risk the mall so oldest could get her ears pierced as her birthday present, which I consider a fairly significant milestone. They are both awash in presents for both Chanukah and their birthdays, so I don't think they're suffering much overall. I received one gift (other than the cash my folks handed around in lieu of presents they couldn't come up with. Mrs. bought me Cars, which I had been meaning to see and never got to. I love animation (certain types, anyway) and the Pixar stuff has always worked for me.
My idea for the wife's present has yet to come to fruition. She's been complaining for a while that the FM transmitter for her Ipod doesn't really work that well in her car, and she gets a lot of static. I checked in at a few places nearby & they claim I can't get it to play through her car stereo, but according to Crutchfield, this setup will work (warning - sound file plays automatically.) Problem is, there's a new version out and I can't figure out if it will work on the Honda. Nobody at the stupid company will get back to me, so I can't get an answer yet. If they ever let me know, there may be a little in-dash work for me in the future.
Otherwise things are quiet. Kids had school yesterday and I was off, so I got a little quality time with the Mrs. Most of which was spent cleaning the house for my MIL, who arrived yesterday for a week's stay. I spent gobs of money at the store yesterday (and I think Christians all over New York are grateful for all the Jews - there are always a few places likely to be open even on Christmas day) for a kiddush we're sponsoring at our usual synagogue this upcoming weekend. I believe the usual translation is "collation", which is a polite way of saying we're offering a ton of food for people to gorge on after services. I'm not sure why, but this is the first we're sponsoring in the nearly 5 years we've been there. I should be embarrassed by it, but it is what it is. This is in honor of the kids birthdays, which conveniently enough are three days apart.
We're making up for the delay by providing hot food, which usually makes people happy. There's a caterer who will be bringing that in with a warming oven, and I just have to bring in associated drinks, cookies, candy, etc. Kiddush is a funny thing, at least in most places I've been. People stuff themselves full of the same food they have sitting on the stove at home for lunch. If I know a hot kiddush is coming, I don't even make lunch at home. We eat at shul and just go home for salad and/or dessert.
Anyway, I'll think of you all over the cholent this weekend.
As I sit here at home, able to breathe only intermittently, what better way to celebrate a sick day than answering the Thursday Three?
1. Best/worst Christmas/holiday party you have attended?
Nothing is really standing out except the first one I went to (six years ago) at my current job. Invited to the boss' house in Greenwich, CT (very chi chi, trust me), we're driving up from our then home in the Bronx in the midst of a miserable rain on sneaky back roads with no lights. We get to one road we had been told to use (through a country club, naturally) and the road is under about 5 feet of water. Mrs. is nine months pregnant, we nearly hit a deer, and we're struggling in the dark to find a way around to where this guy lives.
All this to spend two hours with people I barely knew.
2. Best/worst religious Christmas/holiday activity.
I love the religious part of Chanukah Light the candles, sing Maoz Tzur (Rock of Ages to the unlearned, and all six stanzas thank you very much) acknowledge God's assistance in allowing our ancestors to defeat the pagans and cleanse the Temple. I've grown to dislike intensely the commercialization. Don't get me wrong, I love watching my kids get gifts and their joy, but we've had to get them to calm down and wait while we take care of the critical part of the holiday. There are too many people in the Jewish world who treat Chanukah like the Jewish Christmas, and I can't say I love that.
Oh, and I absolutely LOATHE Christmas music.
3. Best/worst gift--given or received?
I'm sure there is, but nothing specific is coming to mind right now. Although the huge boxes of Godiva Chocolates we used to get at my last job were fabulous.
As well it should have. I blogged some months back (here and here) about a Rabbi at the school I went to who was accused of child molestation over a period of 20+ years.
Well, he's been arrested. (Warning - video file).
Apparently there is now a charge not only from 20 years ago, but a recent case in 2002-2003. The nonsense will now commence - denials, he doesn't work here anymore, we never knew, etc., etc., etc.
Everything I said back in May remains my position. We are now faced with the public Chillul Hashem (desecration of the name) caused by our community's failure to take care of this properly before. You will see some reporter standing in the pitch black AM in front of the yeshiva I called home for 10 years. I have not been proud of it for some time, but I am now ashamed to be associated with it. An institution of Torah represents Torah above all else, and this school and its management have not been true to the Torah.
The word of God remains sacrosanct, however we delude ourselves into thinking we are not beholden to it. Dance around this all you want, boys, but you dropped the ball on this one big time. Pray for mercy from God, as you and all of us will need it.
worth reading if you're interested in the difference between Jews & Christians. I certainly am, but I'd never thought about this particularly until someone at the Corner posted this today.
At its heart, the article argues that in Christianity all is forgiveable, and probably should be forgiven. Judaism, on the other hand, believes that there are things out there and people who commit them that are beyond forgiveness. To paraphrase him, Christianity argues "forgive them for they know not what they do," and Judaism argues "forgive them not, for they know full well what they do."
Anyway, read the whole thing.
Some dopey bunch of terrorist wannabes post a video and the AP thinks this is news? YouTube has thousands of videos - perhaps a press onslaught is in order to announce someone else has posted clips from old Dr. Who episodes?
Go out and get a real job, would you?
against Islam continues. If we cannot defeat them militarily, we'll increase their cholesterol. I can only imagine the screaming about torture coming from the great unhinged. And in the meantime, our own citizen soldiers are making do on MREs and food packages from home.
Remind me again which side is the captured terrorists and which are the free citizens of the greatest nation on earth?
and much better fed & watered than yesterday. I would like to say Yom Kippur was filled with the awe & dignity it deserved, and largely it was. As always my concentration was not exactly where I wanted it, but as usual I did my best.
G'mar Chatima Tovah, all.
as Ajami usually is on Islam issues. One guy at least who understands the real mentality of the Arab world.
Lighten up, willya? Considering the sort of things us Hebrews have to put up with, I don't really think you have any business getting offended.
