shmita

My sister called me with an ethical question the other day. When I read Dilbert today, I felt that Scott Adams was listening in.
We had a very nice bonfire on Lag B'Omer. I didn't want to join the community bonfire because I didn't want to fight with my kids when they were done and everyone else was staying up longer. So we built a nice little bonfire on the edge of our cliff next to a neighbor's house. We had all the right ingredients for a good bonfire: marshmallows, hot dogs, potatoes and onions. The kids actually lasted longer then I expected and we left the bonfire shortly after 11.
The traditional/chareidi approach to lag b'omer is that Torah is light and rashbi represented torah so that is why we have a bonfire and he was such a tzaddik that there was never a rainbow during his life (to signify that the world should be destroyed, if not for god's promise). That seems to be a classic case of anti-zionistic revisionist history. The reason the romans forbade learning Torah upon punishment of death is because the leading rabbis at the time, especially Rabbi Akiva, were teaching Toras Eretz Yisroel, which was that only Jews should have governance of Israel and should not be subjected to foreign rule. When Rashbi was heard saying that everything the romans did was for themselves, he was not just talking politics. Rashbi was actively involved in the war effort. In other words, Lag B'Omer is a Yom HaAtzmaut type day in which we celebrate the battle to throw the Romans out of our land. Bonfires were used as military signals and the bow and arrow was the weapon of the day. Obviously this doesn't fit into the hareidi world view even though Rabbi Akiva and rashbi are both considered role models by the hareidi institutions.

Today I signed up for the shmita fruit and vegetable program. There is a 50 shekel registration fee and you get the hilchos shmitta book upon registration. Then every month during shmita they charge you 50 shekels and send you a 50 shekel coupon for use in their store. The food that they will have will be:
a) from the 6th year
b) otzer bais din
c) stuff grown not in or on the ground
Everything will be labeled as to exactly what type of food it is.

They have committed to having food within a 1 hour drive of us, though they believe that there will be a store in our village.

I believe the way otzer bais din works is that our farmers sell their fields to bais din and then bais din pays them to pick the fruit. Bais din then sells the fruit for the cost of picking it. The fruits have kedushas shviis on them and therefore you have to read the accompanying book to figure out exactly how to deal with them. It will be a fun and educational year. We have almonds, pecans, lemons, pomegranates and grapes if anyone wants to come during shmita and eat our fruit. We have 2 new cherry trees as well, but they will be orlah until the year after shmita, so you will not be allowed to take from them. I believe the law is that I have to put up a warning sign to protect people from eating orlah cherries.

war report

We have a spot for our bonfire Saturday night. I cleared away the weeds yesterday with the kids and it should be a nice evening. My cousin is coming up to visit because she wants to be part of the happening at Meron on Saturday night. 300,000 people gather on the little hill to celebrate the death of Rabbi Shimon Bar-Yochai and the loss of the Bar Kokhba rebellion. This is a holiday that I have never understood.

The Winograd report is causing quite a stir in the political arena. I haven't finished reading it yet. I'm only up to page 17, which is the middle of describing the mandate of the commission. The report started ff with a pasuk from Yirmiyahu and a dedication to a girl who died in the war. Olmert has decided to stick it out instead of resigning. His claim is that he will learn the report and implement it. As far as I understand the report says that the leaders are egomaniacs who don't know how to lead and are too involved in their petty self-interests to be of any benefit to the country. I think the only way for that to be implemented after it is learned is if the entire Knesset is hung and new decent people are brought in.

Tzippy Livni, the 2nd in command asked the prime minister to quit so that she could be in charge. I heard an interview with someone who said that she couldn't quit because if she did there would be no one to take the prime minister's place when he resigned. That is the sad state of affairs.
Meanwhile the defense minister is making comments in the press, like , "wow. I did a great job" and completely ignoring what was written in the report.

There is a huge protest in Tel Aviv tonight asking for the resignation of those who the report calls "miserable failures." I'm not going because I didn't know about it until just a bit ago and I am busy tonight. Also I don't think he'd quit if all of Israel asked him to. He is insisting on being thrown out.

Azmi Bishara is being investigated for giving Hizballah information during the war. While we don't know the exact details and we are sure that most things mentioned in the media are not true, he did flee the country and has no intention of returning. With that, Balad will probably pick up another seat or 2 in the next elections.

Rhonda is in town, we haven't seen her in forever. She is coming to visit us with her new husband Nachman of Breslov and we are very excited to see them.

Last night I made a shiva telephone call to a friend who's mother very unexpectedly died in the US. I felt I should call, so I did. I didn't want to ask him how he was doing, because I knew how he was doing - lousy. I didn't want to ask him how his wife and kids were because the focus of shiva is on him and it isn't a social call. I couldn't exactly say, "man, this just sucks." Basically I said, I'm sorry I couldn't be there to comfort you in person and I said the traditional phrase of comfort, "May God comfort you amongst the rest of the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem." and then I hung up.

lag b'omer

In 15 minutes the interim report for the Second Lebanese War is due to be released. The prime minister received his copy almost an hour ago and was supposed to review the entire thing before it was released to the media.
I am actually planning on reading the report. I would like to know what Winograd thinks of the fact that my family spent our summer traipsing around Jerusalem. I wonder if he will quote my blog. I doubt it, but he might.
In any event, the prime minister is too seasoned a politician to go down with the ship. He's the kind of guy who will tell the women and children that the rescue boat is on the other side of the ship so they wouldn't crowd him while he tries to survive.

Also in the news today, Yossi Beilin contradicted the PM who said that he had the Knesset's full backing. Beilin sent Olmert a letter with all of Meretz votes during the course of the war. Of course, Meretz wanted to vote on Israel bending over voluntarily so Hizballah could not be accused of raping us.

We're trying to decide if we should have our own bonfire (and get the kids to sleep at a decent time) or join the community bonfire (and have the kids up all night). The problem is that our normal bonfire location has been taken over by weeds. To do the bonfire ourselves, we will have to clear the area and then go gathering wood. We'll probably make the decision tonight.

insults

Today I insulted someone at work accidentally. His computer wasn't working and my technician reported it was because of viruses. In the follow-up email I sent him, I said that his computer was full of viruses and that he should use the anti-virus software (that he should have been using the whole time) from now on. I also included a damage report which , because there was no other damage just included the time that everyone who worked on it had to put in.

Apparently, when you tell an engineer that his computer is full of viruses that is one of the worst insults that you can lay on him. It says that he doesn't know anything about simple computer use and that he is a complete idiot for downloading all types of garbage without a thought for computer security. I found all this out because he went to my boss and told him how insulted he was and how he was upset because I said that everyone wasted all of that time because of him.

I apologized for saying it was full of viruses, I should have been more precise and mentioned that there were only 2 viruses. I also explained that the purpose of a damage report is to explain that even though he didn't lose any information and there did not seem to be any real damage, we still consider time to be very valuable. By the end of the conversation, he was much happier that we had talked and that I had explained myself. Sometimes I hate email, but I always prefer to have the written record.

I was thinking about Jews and Judaism recently. One of the things that slavery in Egypt was supposed to have done to us was forge us into a nation. Looking at non-religious Jews being proud of their Judaism, while hating the religion, makes me think that the Holocaust may have reinforced that. I think Jews were at a point where if they didn't want to be Jews anymore they were just slipping away. Judaism was a religion in Europe, not a nation. There were no secular Jews, Jews who didn't want to follow the religion just faded into society or joined other religions. Today secular Jews blast the country for the few religious institutions that are part of modern society (read weddings and no chametz on pesach). These Jews would never consider giving up their Judaism, rather they want to be Jews without Judaism, in other words a nation with no religion.

Apparently this is a good thing from a religious perspective, though without the religious aspects of our nation we would just fade away as history has proven time and again.

yom haatzmaut

Yom Hatzmaut was a lot of fun. One of the highlights of the celebration is the candle lighting ceremony, in which someone who represents some group lights a candle and says who they are and why they are lighting a candle. I've never seen it but the ceremony at Mount Herzl is supposed to be all that. Anyways, this year is the 50th anniversary of our village and they asked me to light a candle as a representative of all the olim, past and future, who have and will come to build the village into the great town it is today. I thought it was pretty silly, but I got a lot of comments from people that actually consider it to be a big thing.
The first part of the evening was the special prayer which is culminated by the blowing of a shofar. There were a lot of presentations and speeches before we finally got up to the candle lighting ceremony and by the time I finally lit my candle it was 10:30PM. The next day at davening, most people were dressedin their yomtov finest and we sang hallel and heard the special haftorah.
I was asked if I was really participating because I come from a less Zionistic background and we generally don't say hallel on Yom HaAtzmaut (or listen to live music for that matter, because it is a time of mourning). I replied that we always pasken like Hillel and this day should be no different. (אבות ב,ה) .

My aunt was in visiting from Arizona and she enjoyed both Memorial Day and Independence day.

In the morning we went with 2 other families on a nice 5 hour hike around the base of mount meron. The kids did excellent, though they would have preferred if it was an hour or so shorter. The other two families both brought color-coded books on the flowers of Israel and when we saw interesting looking flowers we stopped to find out what they were.

We finally got back home around 4ish and started preparing for the big mitzva of the day - BBQ. We had about 30 people (including children) and tons of meat. Each of the participating families brought a lot of food. We had hot dogs, steak bits, chicken bits, steaks, bigger steaks, lamb chops, chicken wings, shnitzels and so on. The kids ended the eating by roasting their marshmellows over the grill.

Now life is back to normal until the next big holiday - lag b'omer.

memorial day

Talk about a busy day at work, I didn't have a minute to breathe and I am in the middle of a dozen projects. It is much better then when I was sitting at work with nothing to do, and I threatened to quit, but there should be some sort of middle ground.

I just got back from a memorial day ceremony. Growing up in America, Memorial Day was the beginning of spring, a day to BBQ and big sales. I never really thought about it as a day to think about the soldiers that fell to build the nation and to keep the nation safe. I think it would really benefit the youth of America to understand what Memorial Day really means. Maybe now with the war being close to home and our soldiers losing their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, people will take a minute to think about it and educate their children on May 28.

The chief rabbi of our village spoke at the ceremony and talked about the Israeli professor in Virgina who gave his life to save his students. There was a prayer for the dead, the kel malai rachamim, and a video in which each person who died in the Israeli wars with a connection to our village had a picture shown and his name announced. At the end they announced the names of the people who were killed during the war last summer, including the arabic people from our sister village. We left when the boys started really complaining in the middle of the speeches.

the lebanese

BTW, I've started facebooking now. So if any of you are on facebook, you can add me to your list.

The Lebanese are planning on taking Israel to court for reacting inproportionately to their kidnapping of our soldiers and firing missiles at us. The fact that Lebanon still exists after I had to spend the entire summer in Jerusalem tells me that we did not act proportionately enough. One of the raison de etres of a state is to protect its citizens, worrying about the enemy should not even come into the picture. They aren't even saying that Israel attacked them unprovoked. They are simply saying that 2 of our soldiers and a couple missiles are not worth the destruction that we caused.

I have some advice for the Lebanese. If it isn't worth the damage, don't start up. If they felt it was worthwhile for them to attack us, because we would only respond with what they felt was fair then there would be no such concept as Deterrence. The only way to keep people from attacking you is by making them assume that if they do they will pay for it a lot more then they want to. The only way to make them assume that is that when they actually do attack you, you make them pay more then they wanted to.

In any case, a friend of mine just came back from his reserve duty and told me that this summer's war will most probably be in the Gaza strip and they aren't really concerned with the northern border. I don't know if this should make me worry more because they will not be prepared on the northern border again or relax me because maybe they actually have decent intelligence.

new york to london

I generally ignore email forwards, but I glanced at this one and thought it was good enough to share with you.
Take 60 seconds to do this, I guarantee you will show someone else, it's too funny not to.

1. go to www.google.com <>
2. click on "maps"
3. click on "get directions"
4. type "New York" in the first box (the "from" box)
5. type "London" in the second box (the "to" box)
6. scroll down to direction #23

Now I also tried going to Jerusalem and it wouldn't calculate the driving directions. If everyone will please email google and tell them that you consider them racists and anti-semites because they didn't include driving directions to Jerusalem from the US even though they included driving directions to Europe I would find that amusing.
Dumb, but amusing.

holocaust day

My son came home from gan (nursery) today wearing a yellow star that said Jude on it. In fact, all of the kids were wearing the star except for one little russian boy and the other children were all throwing things at him yelling "sheigitz,sheigitz." Ok, that last part didn't happen, but it probably could have. When my wife tried taking the yellow star off of his shirt he got very upset and said, "but my teacher said I have to wear it."

Yes, it is once again Holocaust Day in Israel. This morning at 10AM a siren sounded and we all stood quietly for the 2 minutes that it went off for. Except in Sderot, where the children screamed and hid under their desks for the 4th time this morning. Ok, that last part might not have happened, but I don't know for sure that it didn't.

On the radio yesterday they were playing sad, dlow songs to get people in the mood of the day. In Israel if you want to know how you are supposed to feel on a given day you can always listen to the radio and the songs they are playing will let you know.

Yesterday I heard an interview with a Polish minister in which he complained that Israeli youth come to visit Poland and all they do is go to death camps. He felt that it gives a very negative impression of Poland to Jewish teenagers. If I'm not mistaken, Poland is the same country where a number of air force pilots got caught a couple months ago inspecting the local culture in their hotel rooms and were dismissed from their duties. That being said its probably better if we only send our teenagers to look at the death camps instead of introducing them to Polish culture.

My little brother had a baby boy today and I'm not going to write what I was just thinking.
You're all welcome.

In any case, as I've mentioned in the past I am not very pro holocaust day. We already have a Jewish holocaust day, Tisha B'Av, which is an all-inclusive Jewish tragedy day. I do think that it is great that Israeli culture keeps it in the public conscience. We must always remember that as Jews we will only be safe under the protection of God himself, in our own land when we are following the Torah as we are supposed to.

"May God avenge their blood", as it is said, so it is written and so it shall be done.

long day

It's 9:45 PM and I'm still at work. I guess this is my own fault because my application screwed up the data. I just finished the function that went through the logs and put all the data back in the place where it is supposed to be and I'm waiting for the production supervisor to go through the numbers with me to make sure they are all right.

Anyways, back to Pesach. I didn't finish all my beer beforehand and I threw out a couple bottles. I wanted to burn them, but it wouldn't have worked. In the olden days we used to have a pre-Pesach beer party with a couple friends to finish them off.

I just heard that Dan is in the country. If anybody has a phone number for him, please send it my way.

Finally finished fixing the problems and I'm going home.
Have a good shabbos.

I'm UpBeat

According to survey results my typology leaning is : Upbeat. I think that's a good place to be.

A lot has been going on that I have been wanting to write about, but life is so busy these days, especially at work. (I'm one of those strange people that actually works at work)

Upbeat

Based on your answers to the questionnaire, you most closely resemble survey respondents within the Upbeat typology group. This does not mean that you necessarily fit every group characteristic or agree with the group on all issues.

Upbeats represent 11 percent of the American public, and 13 percent of registered voters.

Basic Description
Upbeats express positive views about the economy, government and society. Satisfied with their own financial situation and the direction the nation is heading, these voters support George W. Bush’s leadership in economic matters more than on social or foreign policy issues. Combining highly favorable views of government with equally positive views of business and the marketplace, Upbeats believe that success is in people’s own hands, and that businesses make a positive contribution to society. This group also has a very favorable view of immigrants.

Defining Values
Very favorable views of government performance and responsiveness defines the group, along with similarly positive outlook on the role of business in society. While most support the war in Iraq, Upbeats have mixed views on foreign policy – but most favor preemptive military action against countries that threaten the U.S. Religious, but decidedly moderate in views about social and cultural issues.

Who They Are
Relatively young (26% are under 30) and well-educated, Upbeats are the second wealthiest group after Enterprisers (39% have household incomes of $75,000 or more). The highest proportion of Catholics (30%) and white mainline Protestants (28%) of all groups, although fewer than half (46%) attend church weekly. Mostly white (87%), suburban, and married, they are evenly split between men and women.

Lifestyle Notes
High rate of stock ownership (42%, 2nd after Enterprisers).

2004 Election
Bush 63%, Kerry 14%.

Party ID
56% Independent/No Preference, 39% Republican, 5% Democrat (73% Rep/LeanRep)

Media Use
Upbeats are second only to Liberals in citing the internet as their main news source (34% compared with 23% nationwide); 46% also cite newspapers. No more or less engaged in politics than the national average.

chol hamoed

It's been a busy pesach. Having only one seder and one day of chag gives me more time to go on tiyulim during chol hamoed. Early Wednesday morning we piled into the car and headed Southward towards the Negev. We had reservations for the night in a Sde Boker motel. Sde Boker is the kibbutz where Ben Gurion lived and was buried. There is an interesting custom associated with visiting Ben Gurion's grave, but we did not partake (the kids were with us).
We did some nice tiyuling in the crater (mikhtash) itself and went to an alpaco farm. We ended off the trip with a bbq at the dead sea and then drove on home.
Our seder was multi-ethnic. We had a sefardical family and they did some strange things. We did tell them that they could not slaughter a goat at the table because it would make a mess, so they compromised on that custom.

I bought sticker sheets to keep the kids happy but I only got 2 spiderman sheets and there were 3 boys, so there was some crying. but all and all it was fun.

chomesh

My nephew, Baby Boy Blue, is having his pidyon today in Jerusalem, so we'll be heading down south later on this afternoon. I called my brother to give him some advice about what not to speak about. Some people might speak about the 2 times that you would do a pidyon, when your wife has a boy and when your donkey has a boy and then they would try to compare it. Women sometimes misunderstand the vort and think that you are referring to them in the same way you refer to a donkey. My brother agreed not to use that vort for the sake of shalom bayis. (He said he wasn't going to anyways, but sometimes you have to warn your little brother)

This week the settlers are trying to resettle the Shomron village of Chomesh. Chomesh was destroyed 2 years ago during the with Gazan Rezoning project, where they zoned all of Gaza to be prohibited to Jews. Unlike historic Miami, the zoning laws do allow dogs to remain.

I have very mixed feelings about what is going on in Chomesh. On the one hand, it is part of Israel and we should have the right to settle it. On the other hand, it says in pirkei avos, "pray for the welfare of the government, for if people didn't fear it man would eat his friend alive." The point is that we have a system of laws that we accepted and even if we don't agree with the laws there is something to following them in any case.If the law was against the Torah, obviously you have to stand up against it. But in a case of settling the land, you are not violating any commandment if you live in your own piece of Israel and don't try to settle another part. One of my big problems with the concept is that these people will run to the Israeli court systems to solve their problems, but if the court system rules against them then they call it illegitimate and biased against them. If that were the case, then they should take the road of not recognizing the court system and not running to it to solve their human rights problems. That being said, I think we need a dose of reality here and recognize that we do live in a system of laws. While we can protest the law and try to change it using political and diplomatic means, we should not resort to violence and vandalism to gain our objectives.

That the police and army use violence to disperse people who are breaking laws and refuse to stop peacefully is acceptable in every part of the world. There is no other option other then to allow the people to break the laws. I don't think they should be over-violent, but that happens when you push them to resort to the violence. As an example, if someone came onto my land and refused to leave, I would expect the police to physically remove him. If the law is that you can't be in a place and you go there I expect the police to physically remove anybody who breaks the law. When you force someone to use physical means to gain an objective, unexpected violence can happen.

The answer is to change the law. If we are such a small minority that we cannot, then that basically sucks for us.

happy brithday mrs. rock

Everyone wish a happy birthday to my dear wife, who has gotten one year older today. We will be celebrating the occasion tonight at Morganfelds Steak House in Moshav Liman, about 5 miles from the Lebanese border.

I heard that the rest of the country had a air raid drill this week. Apparently they decided that our systems had already been fully tested this summer and there was no reason to test them again. The girls school did have their own drill, but without any siren.

1 KG= 2.2 lbs

In honor of Pesach someone was selling 10 KG boxes of meat in various cuts, a fixed price no matter which cut you got. The boxes were supposed to contain 10 1 KG pieces of the different cuts. We wanted 2 boxes and some friends wanted a box, so we ordered 3 boxes. When we went to pick it up, the boxes were not 10 KG each, so we ended up taking a box of 18 KG and a box of 14 KG and we had to pay for the extra 2 kg. The first box my wife opened was pretty much what we expected. A variety of 7 different kinds of meat of various shapes and sizes. The second box we opened had 12 pieces of meat, but 7 of them were the same type. Then we had to divvy up the meat with our friends. This wasn't as simple as we thought it would be when we had planned on giving them a whole box. So he brought over a scale and we divided the pieces of meat accordign to type and then started weighing and figuring. It was a bit confusing because we were taking 2/3 and they were taking 1/3 but we didn't want to start cutting the meat. So we weighed and traded and tested and thought until finally our friends had 11 KG and we had 21 KG and everyone was happy.

In offices around the world there is a simcha tax, someone has a baby you give 20 shekel and buy a present from the whole office. I've seen this custom in all the various places I've worked. It comes around. When we had our baby we got a nice present from my co-workers. Today someone came into my office and said that I hadn't paid the simcha tax for International Russian Women's day from 2 weeks ago and he wanted 25 shekel. To be fair on International Russian Men's day, I received a chocolate bar from the Russian women. Obviously I paid because that is how you stay in good standing with the other people in the office, but I thought that maybe it was a bit much to be taxed for someone else's international day. Maybe I should go around collecting for Kwanza.

First of all look at today's dilbert to gain some real perspective.
He's been waxing philosophical recently. Yesterday's was also spot on.

One of my children took Huckleberry Finn out of the library in Hebrew. I told her she couldn't read it.
There is just no possible way that Hebrew can do justice to Mark Twain. I read the first paragraph out loud in both Hebrew and English and the translation was worse then laughable. This is the first paragraph from the original

" YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly -- Tom's Aunt Polly, she is -- and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before."

It's like trying to translate Uncle Remus into Hebrew, you lose 99% of the book because there are no words in Hebrew corresponding to the lack of good English that they use.

Maybe Harry Potter can be translated, but whoever even thought about translating anything that Mark Twain ever wrote should be hung from the nearest tree. That is just pure vandalism. I'm trying to get my eldest to read more in English now. We are slowly learning it together and she's making good progress. Number 2 just started lower case letters and numbers 3,4 and 5 have to learn to read in Hebrew before I will start them on English.

Pesach is coming.

Rafi G, if you're reading this - how much does it cost to buy a cow and shecht it? For those who missed the action, you can watch Rafi G (in still pictures) shecht a big red cow.

We had lunch on shabbos with some friends and they were telling us about other friends who went to the neighboring village, bought a sheep for 900 shekel, got it shechted for 100 shekel and had someone cut it up for them for another 100 shekel. They had to kasher it and cut it into meal size portions themselves, but then they got an entire sheep for 1100 shekels. They will hopefully make a shofar out of the horn, a jacket out of the skin and use the wool for clothing.

I think that the best meal comes from an animal that you feel close with. It should have a name, and preferably you should ride it or take it for a walk before you kill it and eat it. The more connected you feel to the animal really adds flavor.

We are currently trying to make plans for Pesach vacation. We have 2 days of chol hamoed for tiyuling and I have taken off work. Some friends (the sheep eaters) are going down to mizpe ramon and staying in a field school (like a youth hostel). Last year we ended up staying in a youth hostel with them after our camp ground flooded and they found us the last rooms in the place.

2 years ago I had an argument with someone as to whether charcoal needed to be kosher for Pesach. I heard from a third party that the posek in Detroit said it did. The star K's website says it does not. It is certainly not fit for a dog to eat, but you are cooking on top of it, so maybe that makes a difference. In any case, the posek I asked said it was fine (I didn't need to negotiate at all). He did tell me I needed a new grill for Pesach, which I completely disagreed with. However, he wouldn't budge from his original position, so I sold my grill and bought a new one (which I put away so it is available this year). The reason I disagreed was because I burnt any chametz that was on my grill (during use). After you burn chametz it ceases to be chametz and therefore you should be able to use it. Unfortunately, I lost that argument though I don't see how you could see it any other way. The mitzva itself is to burn the chametz. ARGH!!

Remember 30 days before the holiday it is appropriate to learn the laws.

A thought from this weeks parsha.
The midrash brings down an incident when Moshe asked the people for donations for the mishkan. The women wanted to donate their copper mirrors.Moshe refused to accept them because he said that the mirrors are objects that women use to make themselves look pretty. They are therefore to be treated as unholy. God spoke to Moshe and said "you are not correct, Moshe. These mirrors are dearer to me then any other donations because the women used them in Egypt so that their husbands would desire them and keep the family bond strong." Moshe accepted the donation of the women and made them into a kiyor, the sink from which the Kohanim washed their hands and feet before doing the avodah.

We can learn a lot from this story. One thing we can learn is that sexuality in Judaism is not only appropriate, but that effort put into keeping you marriage and sex life healthy is very important to God.

A second thing that we can learn from this, that commentaries generally don't bring down (at least I haven't seen it) is that rabbis can be wrong. Moshe could have jumped up and down screaming, "Torah Lo BaShamayim hee" (Torah is not in the heaven, but should be adjudicated by the humans it was given to), he could have said, "That is very nice God, but we are more machmir." But instead he accepted that he was wrong and accepted the gift of the women.

The midrash is teaching us that just because someone is a great person, a big talmid chacham or someone who speaks directly with God doesn't mean that everything he says or thinks is correct. While we have to weigh what great people say very heavily, we still must realize that they are people and not Gods.

The way my dad will look at this is that it took God himself to tell Moshe that he was wrong. The answer to that is look at who told Amram (the leader of that generation) that he was wrong about leaving his wife in wake of the Egyptian slaughter of all newborn males. A little girl.

Stupid Jews

I was speaking with my father-in-law about the story of Korach and he didn't understand how people who saw har sinai could let their personal ambitions get in the way of the obvious.

I thought about this for a little bit and it applies to all of the problems the Jews had beginning in Egypt until the end of the Torah.

Suddenly I had a revelation. Everyone says that Jews today are very smart, a large portion of the leaders of art, science, math... are and have been Jewish. Maybe what happened was the stupid Jews got killed in the stories such as the Golden Calf, the Spies and Korach,... the only gene pool left was the smart Jews and as everyone knows smart jews make other smart jews. This is why we are so afraid of assimilation, we don't want to let stupid genes back into our people. There are some Jews today who are stupid (such as our current PM) and I think that is we call a genetic malfunction.

Another opinion is that this is another case of Woe, for you have listened to the voice of a woman.

We had a very nice shabbos with a lot of hoopla, my parents, in laws, older brother and family, sister amd BIL with family all came up and we made a kiddush in shul for the baby. I gave a nice speech about names and why we gave our child an English name that sounds like the Hebrew name but means something slightly different with an English pronunciation. I didn't want her to think that the one name I gave her was 2 different names, as it is pronounced differently by us and by them. Shabbos was very nice, hopefully one day we'll see the whole family together again. (J22, you left first).

A new phenomenon in the anonymous blog world is occurring, in what might be considered a new evolution of the blog. Anonymous bloggers are generally known to a few select people, such as spouses. As such it is impossible to complain about your spouse or about something you don't want your spouse to know about on your own blog. Shifra wrote about her MIL's dish washing ability at the Muqata, while PyschoToddler went over the conversation he had with his wife about his planned HDTV and XBox 360 on Ask Shifra.

Of course this only works if the people you are complaining about don't read the other blogs that you can write on. Otherwise you will need a new anonymous name for your anonymous self. It only gets more confusing.

anonymous blogging

For those of you following the blogging lawsuit against Orthomom demanding her secret identity because an anonymous commenter called the plaintiff a bigot and anti-semite. (BTW the woman is Jewish or black (she has a Jewish name) and it seems to me from the comments I have read she is more anti-Orthodox then anti Jewish though there are those that don't differentiate. It also seems to me that if the Orthodox would put their children in the cesspool public schools then she wouldn't have anything against them either, but I've never heard anything about her aside from the blog. That being said I probably wouldn't vote for her if she ran for a public office that I had the right to vote in.)

I am personally pro anonymity in blogging, though I myself am only a little bit anonymous, most of my readers know who I am. There is real harm that can be done to people via anonymous blogging and posting. For example, Salon.com has a story about female law students who are being anonymously posted about. The postings would probably constitute sexual harassment and would have even been a thought if not for anonymous blogging. These discussions, which often include the full names and pictures of female law students, are generally of a sexual nature and hinder the prospects of these students from getting jobs after they graduate. If a potential employer googles a candidates name and finds a discussion about her breast size or various exploits that will color the way he looks at her, whether or not they are true or not. I feel that censorship has its place and it is the responsibility of the forum administrator to determine if the discussion requires censorship or not.

Censorship is applied here at the Rock of Galilee. I erase any comments that I decide are unfit for my audience and I only post items that I feel are readable. I have erased/modified a number of articles that I have posted because I have agreed with someone who told me they were inappropriate.

Anonymity is important when there is a good reason for no one to know who you are and no one is getting hurt by your comments, for example to vent. There was a blog called reasons I hate my flatmate on which a reason was posted every day until the flatmate moved out. Nobody knew who it was or where in the world they lived. It was completely anonymous and it was good.

In the case of Orthomom's politics, it is possible (she feels it is probable) that she would be victimized if her identity was known. However, she has to be careful to keep an open tone so that she is not sniping at people behind the veil of anonymity. I am not a regular reader of hers, but it seems to me that she has not crossed the line very often. Her commentors have crossed the line on a number of occassions and I feel that it would behoove her to censor her comments.

Government Censorship = Bad.
Self Censorship = Good.

If it is your forum, you are the boss.

goodbye Julia

Julia Casterton passed away 2 weeks ago and I only found out today. Let us all have a moment of silence in her memory.

Julia was 54 when the angel of death came for her. She was a poet and a teacher and she had touched the lives of a lot of people.

I would like to say that she hadn't touched my life at all, but then I wouldn't be writing about her at all. Ms. Baroque is also feeling a bit down. Please go to her blog, if you have a chance, and leave your condolences. It mentioned that she was dead so I checked the obituary, linked above.
She had 3 husbands, though probably not all of them at the same time.

Julia, Rest in Peace.

I have written a poem in her memory that I am sure she would have appreciated.

Keep it coming, on the wings of a kite
Flying so high till you are out of sight
Like an eagle chasing a lonely sparrow
The skies suddenly seem all tight and narrow
Raining down upon a village so green
ordering the lowest about like a queen
To look up high and continue running
Or sitting on the beach and sunning
Like a turtle trying to just get there
but dragged forcefully to the lions lair
hiding in his green bowl shell hoping for no eviction
The time has passed and the wind has blown
What is will be and soon will be shown
For the end is upon her lying there so sweet
Put into the ground as her creator she'll meet
Down below the poeple still scurry
thinking that they need to hurry
to get somewhere but where that is
not even a little bit of your biz

Goodbye Julia.

bar mitzva

A Hebrew lesson to start out with:
In Hebrew if you don't know someone (or you do know someone) you should say you do/don't recognize them, otherwise biblical knowledge is implied. The first time I found this out was at a sheva brachos a year ago where I spoke and said I didn't know either the chosson or the kallah and everyone started laughing. But I forgot and said it again.

Our purim fun actually started Wednesday night as we headed down to Jerusalem for a Taanis Esther bar mitzva. The grandson of one of our regular wartime writers, Doc's Wife, was flying in from Toronto with his family to accept his place in Judaism. It is very appropriate and symbolic to accept the yoke of mitzvos in Israel, where God expected us to do those mitzvos. The first time that you say in birchas hamazon (and it counts), "Thank you God for giving our fathers a fine, good and wide land" should be in that fine and good land.

Wednesday evening and Thursday morning we spent with family, and even saw the new baby whose bris was on Purim morning. Thursday afternoon at 2:00 PM the festivities started. 2000 years ago on that day our ancestors in Iran were crying about what Haman wanted to do to us. In reality they were crying over the bais hamikdash, the Jewish Temple that was destroyed by Nevuchadnezar, king of Bavel. We stayed with the program and the same line of thought and went to the place where they are actively working to bring back the bais hamikdash, the Temple Mount Institute. They are hard at work building all of the vessels used in the Temple according to their specs and will actually be kosher for use in the third temple. We saw a number of presentations and heard the explanations of how it all comes together.
After that we headed down to the kotel, the wailing western wall, standing in sorrow with a gold dome over its head. We headed underneath the plaza into the tunnels and heard the story of the wall and walked alongside its entire width. Apparently the reason we are allowed to go up on part of the Temple Mount today is because when Herod enlarged the temple plaza he forgot to perform the holiness ceremony and it was left bereft of holiness (for our benefit). My chavrussa, the boys uncle, gave the tour which was mostly excellent, and some of it just very good.
We had to wait until it was fully dark outside before finishing the fast and we davened maariv at the kotel. As the stars came out, the bar-mitzva boy came of age and he lead the tefilla (probably very well, though it was very hard to hear him).
After a full day of bar-mitzvaing him, it was finally time for the celebration and we headed up to the Cardo for a fun and delicious meal. The boy and his father made a siyum on mesechas megilla (very appropriate for Taanis Esther, I'll be finishing it in a couple days myself). We then donned togas, as is appropriate at the Cardo restaurant, and ate. The Cardo restaurant is a very interesting place where you can dress in costume, eat good food and play with the various ancient Greek accessories lying around. There is a greek helmet and a large (sharp) sword. There were axes and shields...

The children made a spice bag for havdala, they actually beat the ingredients with a wooden stick until they were fine enough, while the adults watched a video presentation on the history of the bais hamikdash.

After all was done we headed back to our northern village, getting in just after midnight. Shabbos is another story as we continued celebrating the bar mitzva. I sold aliyahs in shul, in what seems to have become a custom. I was expecting them to ask someone else because I don't speak the worst Hebrew anymore, but what can you do. They certainly had what to laugh at. Hopefully that will be in another post.

I thought the father's name was very interesting, in Hebrew it means either (according to Babylon) Slow God, Sluggish God, Leisurely God, Laggardly God, Phlegmatic God, ... (and a lot of other interesting possible pronouns.) When I met him, he was very excited to finally meet the Rock of Galilee and I was excited that I actually had a reader I didn't know.
Remember, if any of our readers are planning a simcha in Israel it is appropriate to invite the Rock of Galilee family.

Talk about an exhausting Purim and I didn't even have a bit to drink. It's a good thing Purim sheni is coming up soon for those of us who were driving on regular Purim. We know about Purim sheni because of a gezera shava between the 15th of Nissan and the 14th of Adar. As everyone knows, gezera shava can be one off.

Starting from the end of our Purim, we somehow arrived safely after a thoroughly exhausting day. The last Purim thing we did was give Shalach Manos to Jameel's brother-in-law. Rumor had it that Jameel was spotted in the village where we were eating so we rushed over after we finished the meal with our shalach manos and digital camera to see if maybe he removed the big yellow smiley face for Purim. He must have heard the paparazzi was coming and he left 5 minutes earlier. The guy who answered the door was Jameel's brother-in-law so I gave him the mishloach manos and wished him a happy Purim.

The seuda was great. My wife made EssigFleish (which means eat meat in yiddish) a combination of meatballs and a stringy meat roast cooked together. My sister made spicy steak poppers that were delicious. If you want to try it, post on her blog asking for a date (boys only). If you make it to the third date you may even get it cooked for you. (Past performance is no indication of future results.) There was plenty of other food going on, but those were the highlights. I successfully passed the merlot challenge when I was easily able to tell the difference between Petit Sira and Merlot, though that was the only thing I had to drink :-(.

Before the seuda we spent some quality time with a friend from high school (and his family) who was dressed as charvorna. I had to give 2 shalach manos according to the law so before heading over to his house I went over to fellow blogger Rafi G's house with a basket. He isn't so hard to find. Just drive around his village asking people where Rafi's house is. Everyone knows him. (In Hebrew you would say "Aifoa Rafi?" But since nobody there speaks Hebrew they would just look at you blankly)

By this time we were all quite exhausted. The children could barely stand and I was driving with my eyes closed. (don't worry, we have the new auto pilot system in our car.) They weren't ready for us at the seuda so we decided to go deliver our mishloach manos. I had planned on giving 3, which ended up being good because the last one wasn't delivered until after Purim was over, so it didn't count. I had thought about going hiking because there are some caves in the area that we haven't been in yet, but when I suggested it my children gave signs of revolt.

My brother's kid's bris was a lot of fun. It was a multi-cultural affair which included the great uncle singing piyutim or something and everyone getting a leaf.I think the leaf was to symbolize the fact that God gave Adam a leaf to cover himself when he realized he was naked and its a sign that this baby should not walk around uncovered. The baby was given a fairly settlery type of name which might have deep kabbalistic meaning. The first name is actually a biblical name and is mentioned in the birchat Yaakov for Yehuda. The second name is also mentioned in the Torah in a number of places. My family, Airtime's family, my sister and the father of the baby were the only ones who came dressed for Purim in costumes, which the mother of the baby had said was appropriate, and the grandmother of the baby wanted to know if we were dressed that way because we had just been on a tiyul.

We made it to Shacharis in Modiin and my children were very excited because was davened in the shul where the Macabees heard the Megilla (or somewhat close by). To get there on time, we left our village at 5:05 AM. The plan had actually been to leave at 5AM, but due to some compromising we were 5 minutes late. Those 5 minutes were critical as we got to the shul exactly 5 minutes late. But still 30 minutes before megilla.

We missed our community Purim party because we were planning on waking up at 4:30 to leave. We ended up setting the alarm clock for 4:35. While I was sad to miss the Purim party I was happy that I didn't fall asleep on the road. My dear wife brought along a large hot chocolate in a Dunkin Donuts travel mug, so I would survive the trek.

I drank coffee in Modiin and it was horrible.

Today, Shushan Purim, I'm back at work. I'll leave the pre Purim story for another time.

strike

One week until Purim, the big question is what costume am I wearing. Traditionally, I wear a cowboy hat and go as my real self. This year I am thinking about going as a shochet, but I doubt I am actually going to.

Number 2 is in a concert tonight. This is her first concert, so she will now be a concert pianist. It is actually only 1 song, but we are very excited that she has agreed to do it. She's generally very shy and we wouldn't force her, but we were able to convince her.

I gave a lift this morning to the guy who had asked me for help in fund-raising for our girls school. We hadn't talked about it in a while, so I asked him what the story was. He said there is no need anymore because we got a ton of money from the foundation that was giving out money to fix northern institutions in the aftermath of the war.

Well the Hizballah and the histadrut are talking war again. Israeli intelligence says that the Hizballah is not ready for another war and would prefer to keep it quiet. According to media reports, they are building a new stronghold south of the litani river and expanding their infrastructure.
The histadrut has decided to shut down Israel again, and starting tomorrow, unless an agreement is reached (and it won't be), the trains and planes won't be working and a number of other crucial services will be disrupted as well. I am in favor of paying workers, but there has to be a better way to get them paid then shutting down the airport. Airport workers are getting paid. It is municipal workers in certain cities who haven't gotten paid in a long time.

My parents are supposed to arrive on Thursday, but now we're not sure if they will make it or not. I suggested that they do it the old way. Fly to Cyprus and get on the Aliyah Bet boat going near the coast of Haifa. Then get into a small boat and try to make it to shore. It worked in Exodus.

I think that along with every pulsa denora curse against a prime minister, 2 should be made against the head of the labor union.

Sunday

Busy day today.
My little brother had a baby boy, Purim bris. As I said to him, "Lets hope the shochet isn't drunk." Actually, the bris will be taking place in Jlem, so it is not purim for them. Our purim plans have changed, we will probably be feasting in ramat bet shemesh. Maybe I can score a drink with Rafi G.

We had a couple yeshiva boys up for shabbos from Jerusalem. At the end of shabbos one of them asked if there were any graves nearby that were worth visiting. Our entire region is filled with the graves of pretty much every tzaddik in the book. But he didn't have a car, so there was no way for him to get to Shmaya and Avtalyon, who are resting in peace about 10-15 minutes away.

Our tiyul on Friday was excellent, we went to Nachal Galbon (Jalba'own). The weather was perfect and I am sure the children learned more then they would have learned in school. Especially during Adar, where they dance and have shtick more then class. We walked through a former Syrian military camp and down to the first waterfall, Mapal Devora. We then heded upwards to the other side of the bank to the ancient village of Daburah. This was a Jewish village in the time of the Mishna and the Gemara, they found the address of R' Elazar Hakapar's bet midrash, written in Hebrew when we redeemed it from the Syrians in 1967. The address stone is now located in the museum of Katzrin, so we didn't see it this time. The village was very cool. It was basically ruins, but we saw how houses used to be built, and I showed the children what a shared chatzer was. It was like a walled city. But there were a bunch of them. You walk into a doorway and then there are houses inside with a big courtyard.

We went back down towards the waterfall, and then crossed over the river a number of times walking on rocks, following the red trail. At one point I left the wife and kids to head back to get the car and meet them at the exit point. They saw 2 more waterfalls and had a very steep climb up from the wadi.

I highly recommend this tiyul, but it is well worth reading up the history before going, so that you understand what you are seeing.

TIYUL!!!!!!!

My old secretary would have known what the weather for tomorrow would be. And if she didn't know she would have checked for me. In any case, I found the weather forecast on ynet and it is supposed to be hot tomorrow. This is good because I was planning on taking the family on a tiyul instead of sending them to school.

We haven't decided exactly where we are going yet, but I would like to go see some waterfalls. During Sukkos we went to Nachal Iyun (in Metula) and all 3 waterfalls were dry. This might be a great opportunity to go back and see them full of water.

In Israel news, everyone's favorite billionaire Gadyamak (prounounced Giddymak) started a new political party. The news reported that he told Olmert to be very afraid. Gadyamak is not planning on running for public office himself, but will have a strong hand in developing the platform. I don't know if I would vote for him, but I don't like any of the other parties either. Lets wait and see what his platform actually is.

trippin' hate

On my way home today I was tripping down memory lane when my thoughts were suddenly invaded by a certain person who I was once good friends with. The total feelings of utter hatred and contempt rose in my chest and surprised me. I had forgiven him for the sin of being alive more then 10 years ago.
It led me to the question of can you hate someone who you have forgiven? If you still hate him maybe you didn't really forgive him. So I called my sister, who is one of the few people who would understand that question without needing any explanation.
She felt that you can hate someone who you have already forgiven and it is still a full forgiveness. Her reasoning was that while you have forgiven a specific act that the person has done, the person isn't going to change and what you hate is the way this person behaves, which will continue with or without your forgiveness.

I'm not sure I agree with that. When I forgave him, it was before Yom Kippur and I said "I forgive that jerk, but I still wish he fell off a roof and was still alive to feel himself get rolled over by a truck." In any case hatred is very powerful. As it is said, "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to the dark side." In the newer movie (which I haven't seen) Yoda says that hate leads to suffering, but in the original he stated correctly. Hate leads to the dark side.

Another question I was thinking about is why this person invaded my thoughts. Does that mean that an event had occurred with him, so his presence was stronger in the universe or was it just a random occurrence. A lot of people from the past came to me while I was driving and for the most part it was a very pleasant experience.

Happy Adar

It's been a while since I've had the opportunity to write. I've turned into one of those few people who actually spend his whole day at the office working and who has time to blog when they go home.

One of the funniest things I have had the opportunity to hear is a business meeting in English by two high level people who don't speak the language very well. They certainly made themselves understood, and we are talking about very smart people, but the way they used the language made me feel very good about my Hebrew. They didn't have much of a choice in the language, it was a Swede meeting with an Israeli who made aliyah from Russia a long time ago.

It is the beginning of the Jewish month of Adar and that means that it is time to get ready for Purim. Last year my favorite costume set in our village was a husband and wife. The wife was M in english and אם in Hebrew. The husband was wearing a couple pillows on his stomach and he was P3 in English and פי שלש in Hebrew. For those who don't get it, think again.
We have a great theme for our shalach manos this year, but I'll probably just put on the old cowboy hat and go as myself.

I haven't been by the Muqata in a while, so I haven't seen what the plans are for the jblogosphere, but I plan to check it out later on today.

Last night I saw a movie that I truly enjoyed called Bulworth. It's about a senator who hires a hit man to kill himself and then endears himself to the black community of South Central LA. If you haven't seen it yet, see it now.

In Israeli news, the chief of Police quit half an hour before he was supposed to be fired. He said he was taking personal responsibility. That brings out memories of "you can't fire me, I quit." Now the head of the prison service will be the head of police and the deputy head of police will be the head of the prison services, the music stops and this country is just as screwed up as it was before the music started. Oh and the head of the tax authority quit, he's being investigated for...tax evasion.

I think I saw a skit like this country at Second City once.

shiurim

Now that I am driving to work, I have started downloading MP3 shiurim to listen to on the commute.
I heard a great shiur on kabbala and golus by Rav David Bar Chayim of Torah Light. I really enjoyed it and it definitely was on my wavelength (which sme people would say is odd). It is about an hour and a half shiur, but it is well worth it.
I'm currently downloading the daf yomi for Megilla. If I can make the time to actually go over it inside as well, I will have a much better understanding then I have been until now.

army tremp

This morning I gave a soldier a ride from tzomet Achihud all the way to Nesher, a suburb of Haifa. He got in my car and heard the shiur on the cd player and immediately put his hand in his pocket, pulled out his kippa and put it on his head. He asked who the rabbi was and I told him it was Rav Elon, and his response was, "He's the best".
The shiur ended with a great connection between last weeks haftorah and this weeks parsha (not just the yisro relation angle and not the shira). Barak told Devorah that she would have to go to war with him or he wasn't going to go. This is because he didn't want people attributing the victory to him, but to God with the people's help. This is the reason why Yisro came to the Bnei Yisroel, according to rashi, because he heard that God was working with the people. In that same way when Yael the wife of Yisro's grandchild heard that the Jewish people miraculously beat the Canaanites, she went to the other side and killed the final Canaanite general who her family was aligned with.
After the shiur, we started talking about computers and he asked me if he could call me in the evening to help fix his computer. I told him that he should find a teenager who loves computers and he would be fine. I dropped him off without giving him my phone number because he didn't have a pen.

religious or something

According to Walla news (sorry it's in Hebrew, I haven't seen the story in English yet), Rav Elyashiv has instructed the heads of girl schools and seminaries to ban entrance to any girl whose parents use a "non-kosher" cell phone. The idea of "kosher" cell phone is to remove the Internet/tv/(camera??) features of the cell phone so that it cannot be used for viewing inappropriate material.

They have not gotten to the level where the phone automatically disconnects if a boys voice is heard on a girl's phone, but don't think that is far behind. And no, it doesn't matter if it is the father calling his daughter. It is bitul torah to talk to your daughter in any case.

Why is it that every time I hear news from the Chareidi world, I thank God that I moved to a dati leumi community?

On the other side of the spectrum a non-religious yeshiva opened up in Tel Aviv. No it is not for people who want to become religious, it is for people who want to stay secular. It aims to give over Jewish culture without Jewish religion. Sounds Greek to me. They have not formulated a policy on cell phones yet, but I imagine that they will only allow people in who use their cell phones in inappropriate ways to counter to negative publicity of inappropriate cell phones.

On my way to work this morning I listened to a Rabbi Mordechai Alon shiur on parshas Yisro (I haven't fallen so far off the derech to say Yitro yet, but one more chareidi news story...) So far I've listened to 45 minutes of it and he has talked entirely about the haftorah of last weeks parsha. The connection is there as the girl who kills the bad general (sisro) was married to one of Yisro's children or grandchildren. It will be interesting to hear how he brings it all together. I guess when you give a parsha shiur for so many years it becomes hard to find some connection that you haven't already used.

no bukser for me

Happy Tu Bshvat, New Years day for the trees.
This Tu Bshvat, I thought about playing God and pronouncing death sentences on certain trees that I was planning on cutting down this year. You know the whole "who will live and who will die, who in their time and who not in their time..."
In any case, I did some of the who will be born and I planted two cherry trees, one sour and one sweet. The guy in the store told me that they were three years old and that he had them for 1 year. I went straight from the store to the rabbi to find out when i could eat the cherries, if they actually grow. After some quick negotiation, he gave me a one year dispensation and said I could eat them Tu Bshvat 2009. This is because the flower pot they were growing in had holes on the bottom and the flower pot was sitting on the ground outside the nursery. The guy who takes care of it is not religious and therefore generally would not be believed for the purpose of religious issues. However, in this case, since I had already bought the trees before asking about their history and he had absolutely no reason to lie and he is ind of the "expert" because he takes care of trees the rabbi said he could be considered somewhat reliable.
So y'all are invited up for cherry pie in Feb. 2009.

Have a great shabbos

got the car

My end of year meeting went remarkably well. They list both positives and negatives of the year. My major negative was that my office is a mess and I should clean it neater. When they get to that level, you know things are going well.
I got my raise and bonus on average with the rest of the company and I also got a company car. All expenses paid for except the taxes (which the government is trying to raise).
My new Toyota Corolla should be here tomorrow morning and then I am done with sheruts forever. I enjoyed the morning train, but that half hour was the only part of the hour and a half commute that was even partially acceptable.

Now I have to buy CDs to burn so I can start listening to the daf on the way to work. I'm way behind in Taanis, but if I can get 2 pages in every day, I'll catch up before they finish.
I will also be able to finally get to shul in the morning. If I leave 10 minutes later then I leave now, I will be able to get to minyan at the Technion and still get to work at the same time.

God is great.

english speakers unite???

I've been thinking about the value of an English Speakers Business Club where English speakers in Israel from different business sectors could get together once a month and socialize. The purpose of the group would be utilizing our common language to network, help each other out and just in general meet people to add to your contact network.
I mentioned this idea to NBN because I am on their employment buddy list and I thought this would be an effective way of networking the buddies to help NBN olim as well as helping themselves.

Or would it be a complete waste of time.

goings on

Sometimes Dilbert has perspective and other times Dilbert is just dumb. Yesterday's Dilbert was dumb. They are making a whole week series about the alien which will at times be funny. But the opening salvo is definitely missing what it needs. Today's was decent and can relate to a business environment.

On Sunday night we had a couple of seminary girls over the house, the wife's cousin and her friend. We took them bowling in Karmiel and I am embarrassed to say that I lost 1 of the 3 games. The plan was to hit a strike in the last frame and then win, but in the last frame I only got a spare (the last pin was rocking back and forth and should have fallen) and lost by 4 points.

I have my end of year meeting at the end of the month, it was postponed from yesterday. This is the big meeting where I find out if I get my car or not.

And finally it looks like our community swimming pool will be opening soon. It has been closed since this summer when it got a direct hit by a katyusha. When that is finished there will be no remnants of the war (aside from a little PTSS) and I can therefore remove the tshirts and mugs from the site.

miracles do happen

Someone asked me last week why God didn't show his face these days the way he did in Biblical times. No plagues, no walls falling down, no nothing. Just the sun coming up every morning and going down every evening.

I gave him a bunch of answers, such as the miracles occur every day, we just have to see them. As examples, I gave him the tsunami and the 6 day war. He thought those were too natural looking and were not on the same level as what used to be.

I was looking through this weeks parsha, Vaera, where the plagues against Egypt started and I noticed a very interesting pattern. All of the wonders that God was doing in Egypt, starting from the very first one, were all copyable on one level or another by Paroahs magicians (except for the lice). He started off by throwing the stick on the floor and it turned into an alligator. The magicians then did the exact same thing. Moshe and Aharon were able to "outmagic" them each time. If God was trying to show miracles, why didn't he start off with things that the magicians could not do?

It seems clear to me that all the miracles that occurred back in the time of the bible could be explained by the norms of the times. It was not an obvious miracle that everyone stepped back and said "this is God."
When the walls of Jericho fell down, the Jews first walked around 7 times blowing a shofar. People who did not want to see miracles could have easily said that the Jews found the weak spot in the walls as they walked around it 7 times.

In short, we only see them as clear miracles, because it was laid out for us as such. To casual observers, they all may have looked mike natural, or normal supernatural events.

In our lives we have the exact same experience. We see tsunamis, powerful Israel lost a war to a ragamuffin band of terrorists, Jewish Israeli communities are wiped out for no real reason, and so on and so forth. It is very easy to look at these events as happenstance, natural events that have no connection to the upper world.

Or you can see God's hand moving the pieces around the board as he plays a winning game of chess with himself.

vague

I knew a rabbi who was oftentimes purposefully vague and would say things that didn't make a whole lot of sense on the face of things. It would cause you to think about things, such as "does that mean that he knows about ..." or "Does he want me to get more information about ..."

This type of vagueness can be very frustrating at times for the receiver, but for the speaker it can accomplish exactly what you want without the need to express it.

This is not always a good thing. For example, my children tend to say things like, "I am thirsty" instead of asking for a drink. I explain to them that when they want something they have to be more direct and take it to the next logical conclusion. So I say to them. "You are thirsty, is there a way to fix that problem?

However at times vagueness can be very good. For examples, there are topics that you might not want to discuss before the person has a basic understanding of the topic. A vague comment will cause the person who received it to check into the subject and think about it. Then the person will be prepared for a more direct conversation later on.

Signs from God.

Today I ordered a salad for lunch and they forgot to bring it. They brought everyone else's order, including salads. I decided God didn't want me to eat salad today, so I told my secretary to order me a pizza instead. The pizza came, and that is a sign from God that he is happy with my order.

The pizza was slightly burnt, which I took as a sign from God that he was so happy with the order that he took part of it for himself with a fire from heaven.

The chief of staff of the IDF resigned last night. I haven't talked to anyone who thought that was a bad idea and I spoke to people all across the political spectrum.

lunch talk

Have you ever considered doing something immoral, such as being a serial killer/rapist? Even if you haven't actively considered doing it, has the thought entered your mind? Have you thought about the best way to do it so as to outsmart the police.

What stops you from carrying this out? Is there a sense of morality? based on what? Is it religion? Do you believe you will burn in hell if you do something that God doesn't want you to do? Do you believe in societal norms, without which the world as we know it cannot exist. Have you thought about this aspect as much as you have thought about the other aspect.

I went to lunch yesterday with some colleagues from the former Soviet Union. They aren't religious and the conversation (not initiated by me) went from the weekly Torah portion , to Buddha to Marx and Engels to how religious Jews would relate to a UFO if it were provable that it were from outer space and the beings inside were not from this planet.

After the conversation one of the guys said, in what must be the most Jewish of all expressions, It seems like being religious would be very difficult. (shver tzu zein a yid). I answered him back that being religoius wasn't very difficult and it is much more difficult being Jewish without being religious.

israeli politics

Did anyone else notice that the decision to investigate PM Olmert was made the day after he said at a news conference that one-sided pullbacks, such as was done in Lebanon and Gaza, were a mistake and Israel would not be doing them anymore? I am not going to defend Olmert, he should have been investigated for all these things before he ran as head of Kadima. However, I see European hands mingling in Israeli politics and the Justice Department.
I also agree with Olmert's colleagues about the bad timing of the announcement. When the PM is in another country dealing with matters of state, that is the wrong time to announce that he will be investigated for criminal actions. There is plenty of time both before and after the visit, to announce that. This announcement embarrasses Israel as a country and weakens our hand in dealing with China. The feeling there may be that the guy will be thrown in jail soon and they'll have to start negotiating with someone else pretty soon.

Now we have the head of the tax authority in jail for evading taxes. The head of the Lands authority is in jail for accepting bribes and falsely registering property in other people's names. The Justice Minister is on trial for sexual misconduct, the president is being investigated for rape. The former finance minister is being questioned under warning. The prime minister is being investigated because he has never done an honest thing in his life.

The country's political base is being ripped apart by its seams. The entire Knesset and the hierarchy of all government offices should resign and be banned on working in a position of public responsibility.

I say start over from scratch. We need a few good men to take hold of the country and set it on the right path with transparency built into the framework.

sleeping in class

Cross-posted on my alumni website's forum.

I was talking to my sister recently about some of the rules in her high school and one of them reminded me of a rule that we had in one class that I still do not understand.

Navi class, 11th grade. If you sleep in class you lose a grade on your report card. You can do very well on the tests, by studying for them and reading other people's notes. If the class is so easy for certain students, that they can understand the material without listening in class they should be moved up to a higher level where effort would be required, not penalized.

This is something that students wouldn't even think about. As a student, it would have never occurred to me to ask to be put in a harder class. Now that I am thinking about this rule in retrospect, I think it is something the yeshiva should have offered and recommended to students who sleep in class and still get good grades.

Even if there wasn't a higher level navi class, it could be monitored beis medrash time to learn navi on your own with more difficult tests. Or navi with a beis medrash chavrussa, etc..

This is my constructive criticism, 15 years too late.

Any comments?

40 hours in western galilee hospital

On Shabbos afternoon, my 3 year old jumped onto the arm of the couch, grabbed my kippa and yelled "Daddy, I got your kippa." He then tried getting off the couch and slipped on something on the couch, flipped backwards and landed on his head. He seemed fine, so I yelled at him because I have told him numerous times not to climb on the arm of the couch. His mother gave him hugs.
When I returned from shul after shabbos, my wife wanted me to look at him because he was acting very tired and kvetchy. I looked at him and his pupils seemed a bit dilated. I checked all the other kids and compared their pupil sizes with his and in fact they were larger. So we called his doctor and went to her house for her to check him. She suggested that we go to the hospital to have it checked out because he was having the classic symptoms of cuncussion (brain movement in hebrew) and they would want to do a CT scan to see if he was bleeding.
I went to the hospital with the neighborly nurse (her dad is a head of dept there and she knows the people so we were hoping for some good proteczia). We went straight in and within an hour, he had vomitted once so they decided to keep us. They were going to wait to see if he threw up anymore before doing a CT scan. No reason to radiate the kid if he doesn't barf at least twice. So we slept there. We had a nice room with two other children. One of them spoke no Hebrew at all and the other did as a second language. The ones who spoke Hebrew were friendly, I couldn't tell you if the other ones were or not.
At about 9:30 PM he must have started to feel better because he started horsing around and jumping all over, just like normal. He finally fell asleep at 11:30 PM. I was pretty sure that the next morning we would be released. The doctors made their rounds at around 9 AM. At 8:30 he threw up. So they said that we would have to wait for the next rounds at 3:00 PM to see if we could go home. At 2:30 PM he had a high fever and they suggested that we stay another day. So we stayed another day. The doctors at 9 said we could go home, but they didn't process us until 11, which is when we went home. I hadn't really slept in 2 days, so I got home and went to sleep for 4 hours.

Of course you can't leave the hospital empty handed, so my son came home with a lion shaped helium balloon and I came home with a bad cold.

More on EL AL

A friend of mine who is an EL AL frequent flyer sent them an email explaining that after his upcoming trip (for which he had already purchased tickets) he will be unable to fly on their airline again due to their new policy of violating shabbat.

He got back a nice letter explaining that the reason they flew on shabbat on that one occassion was not for financial considerations but rather because they wished to prevent suffering and distress to their passengers. They also stressed that they are the only airline in the world that plans its flight schedule without flights on shabbat.

_My Commentary_

If the chareidi community goes ahead with its ban, EL AL will most likely start scheduling regular flights on shabbat. They will change the status of the airline from shabbat oberservant with exceptions to not shabbat observant at all.

Instead of threatening not to ride their planes anymore because of a violation in a special circumstance, they could have done much better by praising EL AL and asking them to continue being shabbat observance and to try and find ways to not violate shabbat during times of crisis.

El Al Ban

Well my sources in the Aguda say the ban on elal has already been signed by all the big guys and will publicized if the negotiations this week fail.

Is this the start of a trend? Will all major corporations with majority Jewish shareholders be banned for being open on shabbos? We can start being like Muslims and enact an economic boycott on all Jewish products. Is this only in Israel or will they start banning American things as well?

Farmer Jacks was a Jewish owned store that was open on shabbos. I don't know anyone who didn't buy their groceries there because of it.
Disney's majority shareholders are Jewish and Disney World is open on Shabbos.

Many many more examples out there.

IM conversation about rabbis

Retraction:

I just got yelled at by my chavrussa for writing this post (erased) and I wanted to clarify. There are a lot of good rabbis out there. I personally discuss a lot of things with my rabbi, besides just basic halacha.

There is a definite problem with the AGENDA of the rabbinic establishment, which is mostly what I was bashing. when halacha becomes a basis for pushing your agenda then a lot of people get lost along the way.

The answer is not to ask and accept blindly. The answer is to read the sources yourself and understand the topics. Then when you go for a psak, you have the ability to differentiate between the different aspects of the answer. You can then ask questions based on the sources and if the rabbi ignores your question or pushes it off without answering it, then you now there is probably room to delve in deeper.

The answer to the establishment is learning Torah, so that you will not be taken in by their FUD tactics.

happy new year

It's a new secular new year and in Israel it is celebrated as Sylvester day. When I hear the name Sylvester, I think of a black cat with a white stomach, but apparantly he was also a prominent christian. Israel celebrates the new year in a serious, solemn way which includes prayer, ram's horns and various symbols of a good year such as apple dipped in honey and the head of a fish. It would never fly in Israel to celebrate the new year with drunken parties so they decided to celebrate the fact that a Chistian who persecuted Jews is now dead. So secular Jews throughout Israel raised their glasses in a toast and said, "May all our enemies die like Sylvester died." Then they went on a drunken binge.

Ynet reported today that a prominent Reform leader had an improper "relationship" with a young girl in a pre-military academy who was the daughter of an outspoken prominent reform leader. According to Ynet, while the exact details of the relationship are unknown, the rabbinical studies of the reform leader have been ceased.

The reform movement generally has no problem accepting sexual deviants into the rabbinate. The question here is exactly what is the new policy? Is it that rabbis cannot sleep with underage people? underage girls? underage lifeforms? or specifically children of other prominent outspoken reform leaders?

10th of teves

I'm sitting at my desk - cold and hungry. It is the 10th day of the month of Teves, a day that will live in infamy as the historical start of the Jewish troubles throughout the past 2000 years.
I recommend reading Yehuda Prero's description of the causes of some of our problems. We have a lot of the same problems today as the hatred is not just hatred, but used as rationale for for committing crimes against humanity in the name of our own religiosity.
In modern Israel, this is also the day of the kaddish, a day that anyone who doesn't know when their loved one died can sanctify God's name in memory of the deceased. This is like a religious Holocaust day.

May we merit the coming of Mashiach speedily in our days.

jajah

New free calls from the US to Israel (and back).
www.jajah.com offers free calls between members.
Membership is free.

Calling a US cell phone from jajah is free but calling an Israeli cell phone costs 19 cents a minute.

The way it works is you put in the number you are calling and then hit dial on the computer. Your phone then rings and when you pick it up it says that it is connecting to the other caller and it calls the other caller. It is very cool.

Try it out and you can call us for free.

************UPDATE*********************
You can make free inter-Israel calls for free between land-lines. This means that you don't have to pay Bezek for inter-Israel calls either. Cell phones still cost.

The only negative is that your computer has to be on so you can click on the button to start the call. Slightly inconvenient but free.

snow

We finally got snow. I've been waiting for 3 years for it. As I was walking home last night white flurries started slowly drifting to the ground. Then it started coming in a little bit harder. Within half an hour the ground outside was white with good packing snow. I had a little snowball fight with the neighbors. My eldest laid down on the sidewalk and made a snow angel. The kids were so excited.
I came inside after a bit to take the baby and give my wife a turn. She made a little snowman with the kids.
I brought my skis upstairs because I wanted to get a quick run before it all melted. But by the time the kids went to sleep, it was mostly gone from the street. Next time I'll have to start right away before it has a chance to disappear into the wet pavement.

still under attack.

I've been asked, not only by the anonymous commenter a couple days ago, why I still have the Rock of Galilee under attack if the war has been over for 4 months.

Yesterday 2 boys were injured by rocket attacks in Sderot. 62 rockets have fallen in Sderot since the cease fire a month ago without injuring anybody and the government sits quietly and declares a policy of restraint. The Prime Minister kissed the leader of those sending rockets at us and welcomed him as a friendly head of state, gave him 100 million dollars, promised to remove road blocks and promised to free prisoners getting nothing in return.

Now that 2 boys have been injured there is an emergency security cabinet meeting. People are saying something must be done. This is absolutely ridiculous. Absolutely nothing has changed since the day before the boys got injured and the day after the boys got injured. The arabs didn't do anything differently, they shot the same type of rocket in the same general direction and this time 2 boys were in the way. If restraint was called for before, then restraint is called for now. If it is time to respond now, then the government is guilty of high negligence for not responding last week or last month. Why wait for someone to get hurt when that is obviously what is going to happen.

Train talk came up with a fascinating answer, declaring the inherent Judaism of this country. Until the rockets actually hit someone, the government fatalistically puts their faith in God that no one will get hurt. It is only after someone gets hurt that they see the message from God that if they don't do something they're in trouble.

This is either ridiculous or secular people's concept of God is ridiculous. The first rocket was the sign from God that we have to respond forcefully. There should be no waiting around until parents lose their children or children lose their parents before they see that rockets kill. There is a new road safety campaign going on, "Driving under the influence is murder in the first degree." I think it could just as easily read "Letting rockets fall on your cities without responding is murder in the first degree." Not everyone who drives drunk kills someone, but you don't want to take the chance.

In short, the Rock of Galilee feels that while the country is still under attack, the Galilee is also under attack. We may not be under direct missile threat at the moment but giving our enemies the green light to shower us with rockets while our leaders kneel before them will only make the enemy bolder.

The Guardian of Israel may never slumber nor sleep, but the people who are running this country still haven't gotten out of bed.

separate seating

Most of you have heard the story of the lady who got beaten up on a Jerusalem bus because she was sitting in the front and some whack job beat her up because he wanted her to sit in the back. We almost had a similar situation today in the shared taxi down to the train station today.

This woman wants to get into the taxi but declares first that she won't sit next to men. She asks the guy in the front seat to switch seats and he refuses. I actually offered my seat because I thought that she didn't want to climb all the way into the back and I was on the first row of seats. She then stands outside saying "what are we going to do." I suggested to the taxi driver that we leave this wacko lady and she can find an all ladies van. I'm surprised no one got out and started beating her. Finally someone sitting next to his wife moved to another seat so that she could sit next to another woman. Then, I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it myself, this woman passes her fare up to the taxi driver by giving it to the man in front of her. No handkerchief involved, hand to hand. I turned around and yelled at her that it was completely inappropriate. She claimed that she never touched him while passing the money and I told her that wasn't an acceptable answer.

In the end we made it to the train with no other incidents.

regular day at work

We have a normal day at work and the only indication of any holiday is the reports in the newspaper about Bethlehem.

To all of my Christian readers, have a happy holiday and a happy new year.
This year Bethlehem was rocking though the visitors were a bit fearful that the Muslim radical leaders of Bethlehem would blow them all up. For some reason they didn't.
One of my children saw a decorated tree somewhere and asked me why people are decorating trees. I was very surprised that she had seen one, but I guess we do have a large percentage of non-Jews in the Galilee, so there is what to see.

In interesting news, Ethiopia attacked Somalia today with fighter jets. Does this shock anybody else? They don't even have telephones in Ethiopia!!! Where did Ethiopia get fighter jets from???? Do all third world countries have airplanes? Should this scare us?

For those who read Dag have you noticed how anti-chabad he has been in the past week? You might call him chabophobic.

mom's gone

We had a wonderful shabbos with my sister and cousin joining us from Jerusalem. Mom won the scrabble game, though I came in a close second. When they left they took mom with them and now we are starting life again on our own. The 5th child gave way to the proposed name of a new joint venture called hydroponic pot, which is only 2 levels away from the baby's name.

Our next order of business is to make the child a US citizen. From what I understand, I just have to fill out some simple paperwork and take it to th US Embassy in Tel Aviv and presto she gets a US passport. The US passport is very valuable. It is a free ticket out if the nazis ever come to the Galilee to get us. It also means that she doesn't have to worry about a visa if she ever wants to fly to the US or any other country in the world where US citizens are welcome. We can get her Canadian citizenship too, but the only advantage of that is they would probably welcome her in Iran as well as US friendly countries.

israeli fundraising

When I was in elementary school we had a chocolate milk machine for .10 a carton. On occassion, the milk in the machine was spoiled. When you got a milk carton that was spoiled you took it to Rabbi Freedman (may he rest in peace) who gave you back your dime. However, he wouldn't just give back your dime. He would smell it and taste it first and then sometimes tell you there wasn't any problem with it and give it back.
I was reminded of this when an employee at my office brought a carton of milk to the secretary (who is in charge of ordering food) and said this milk is spoiled, smell it. She looked at him in disgust and said, "if it smells bad, throw it in the garbage. I don't want to smell it."

Chanuka has been fun so far. The kids have gotten nice gifts and have been behaving wonderfully, especially in light of the changes that their new baby sister brought into the house.

Does anybody know if you can get items that you can put your own label on for fund-raising in Israel? Our girl's school is considering starting to a fund-raise, and I was looking at the girl scout cookie model as an opening event. For my elementary school we had sold chocolate bars (not chalev yisroel) door to door.

Israeli's don't really have the culture of fund-raising built into everything they do, because the government gives Jewish organizations a budget. However, the city is not giving the school the money it needs to fix up a lot of things that need fixing. There hasn't been a serious renovation since the school was built 40 years ago. The idea of the school administration was to go to America and get people to sponsor things, such as new playground equipment and then we would put up a nice sponsorship sign. I explained to them that in order to fundraise on that level you have to first build a connection with the people so they feel like it is their organization and only then will they donate. I suggested starting fund-raising through events and actions first and slowly building up to a level where we have the resources to fund-raise other places (if we still need to).

If anyone has any ideas, or knows anyone who wants to donate playground equipment in honor or memory of a loved one for Israeli children who were scarred by a recent war, please let me know.

chanukah

Chanukah is the holiday of lights, camera, action, though not necessarily in that order. The miracles of the day started with action first, as the Maccabis beat the Greeks. Lights came second with the small flask of oil miraculously lasting for 8 days. Finally, the modern mitzva of Chanukah is camera, as we are required to publicize the miracles.

We are really enjoying Chanukah this wear with the new baby. Aura doesn't cry a lot and sleeps through the night. (or she doesn't, but I've heard she sleeps more then my new nephew.)

We had a gathering for chanukah at the office during which we lit candles, ate donuts and drank wine. The women tried to get everyone to sing chanukah songs, but the russians didn't know any of them and asked for the lyrics.

The arabs are killing each other off in the Gaza strip, which could be a good thing, if none of them are left standing, though somehow I don't see that happening. Syria is talking a good peace, but they walk like a duck so nobody believes them.

Our village charity is looking for volunteers for the next war. There are a number of volunteer positions that help support the official city workers including:

• Delivering essentials to bomb shelters, both city and private
• Visiting people and keeping their spirits up
• Working in the command center
• answering telephones
• ...

I've been thinking of signing up, but it would mean that during the next war I would be committing to stay for the duration of the war. If my kids couldn't handle it, which they probably wouldn't be able to, then my wife would have to take them cross country by herself, which would be a hardship. OTOH, I'm not in miluim and don't currently do anything for the protection of the country, so this would be a very nice volunteer opportunity. During the next war, the office will probably be open, so I would only be able to volunteer at night. It's a toss up. A logical decision could be made now taking everything under consideration, but as soon as the missiles start falling, logic goes to pot.

Aura Tehilla

The new baby's name is Aura Tehilla. In keeping with safe Internet practices, we will not be posting pictures of Aura on the blog. This should keep her safe from Internet predators.

There are a lot of interesting nuances between this Israeli birth and all the previous American births. One thing that I thought was funny was the guy who walked into all the rooms in the maternity ward handing out his business card and asking, "Do you need a mohel?"

mazel tov. girl

This was the SMS that I sent out last night to the israeli relatives. Baby girl Zacks was born at 5 PM. Thank God, everyone is happy and healthy.

no baby yet

It's very hard to blog when you have big news coming up and your wife would get very upset if you posted regular updates on the process. There is something to be said for anonymous blogs, but I don't have time for both a regular one and an anonymous.

I have a lot to say about how proud the police is that they caught the rapist after he was on the loose for 2 weeks. They only got him because an anonymous relative called them and described the car he was driving and told them what road he was on. Even after they caught him, he almost got away with telling them his name was Osama.
He was caught in our neck of the woods, about 25 minutes from our village. Thank God he didn't rape anybody (or at least we haven't heard of anybody) while he was out. The Nahariya police took him into custody on Friday evening and then the prime minister violated shabbat to call the chief of police and congratulate him. I don't think congratulations are in order. It's not like the first time they caught him, this time they let him go.

Our religious public school is finally realizing that we cannot survive on government money alone and we are considering a new fund-raising campaign to supplement it. Israeli's don't understand fund-raising because they've never really had to do it, they would prefer to protest against the municipality who should buy the kids new playground equipment. Their second thought was just to collect the money from the US. Coming from a fundraising culture, where a month doesn't go by without some sort of event for one or more organizations, I have put together a list of fundraisers that we can start locally to bring in some needed cash. Girl Scout cookies are high on the list of things to do, but we are entering the winter months, so the kids probably will not be able to go door to door selling.
The upside in our area is that there are no other organizations fundraising, so we don't have to compete with anyone.

In any case, the baby will be born this week. We still haven't picked out a name, so suggestions are welcome (either boy or girl). Remember it is our first sabra, so the names should not have any yiddish in them.