media bias flip flop

Public opinion is generally formed by what is written in the media. This is why so-called "non-free" countries limit what the media is allowed to publish. They don't want the people thinking bad things about them.

This is supposedly not an issue in a country with a free press. The press is supposed to present a fair, unbiased view of current events and then the readers can decide how they want to react to different stories. The editor determines what stories are newsworthy and what bend to give every story. While freedom of press takes away power from the government, it gives that power to a couple of people who were never voted in to anything and have nothing balancing their power.

The editors of the large media outlets in Israel determine the elections. Until a couple days ago, the Yediot and Maariv were both firmly on Olmert's side. Nothing he did was a mistake. Nobody asked Kadima any policy questions. Nobody is questioning why he was letting Hamas shoot rockets into Israel while he decided to send his police force to beat up some Jewish kids.

This is not the first time the major media outlets lined up on a political question. For example, the story of why the chief of staff in the military was fired when he spoke about security issues in the disengagement (or uprooting as Diskin called it) was given minor publicity.

Two days ago the media slightly changed their bias and started promoting Netanyahu over Olmert. They still haven't hit Olmert with hardball questions, but apparently they didn't like the way the poll results were going so they decided to give Netanyahu a couple extra seats.

This unbridled power must be taken away from the press. Media outlets should have a committee that determines when stories are too slanted or when one side of a story is one the headlines and the other side of the story gets half a column on page 4. There should be rules regarding how long someone can be an editor for. There are a lot of ways that the free press can and should be fixed. But it needs to work without government oversight or we go back to our first problem.

no bracha on the train

I was sitting on the train last Thursday night on my way back from Tel Aviv. Across from me was a couple of seemingly non-religious soldiers, a boy and a girl (the girl had a gun and the boy didn't), who appeared to have some sort of relationship (they weren't, חס ושלום, making out but they weren't not making out either, if you know what I mean. Let's just say they weren't exactly shomer negia). I say seemingly non-religious because it is hard to tell what level of religious people are just by the way they dress or act. I think I'll call them potentially religious people. The boy takes a drink of water from his bottle and passes it to the girl. The girl picks up the bottle and is about to put it to her lips when the boy says to her, "say a bracha." She starts laughing like it's a big joke and starts to put the bottle to her lips. The guy grabs the bottle and says, "I'm serious, say a bracha." The girl looks at him with a "you've got to be kidding" glance. Then she says to him, "I'm not saying a bracha." And she drinks the water.
The guy says to her, "I can't believe you just drank that water without saying a bracha." She says back to him "shut up" and that was the end of the bracha conversation.

Obviously there may have been some background to this story, but I found the part I witnessed to be a very funny conversation and thought I would share it with you.

amona, dominica and onwards

Two sides get together to have a fight. Both sides planned on fighting, except according to my neighbor who insists that they picked up random stones that were hanging around the shomron. If the government had really just wanted the buildings down they could have waited 3 weeks after giving the notice and nobody would have been there any more. There are ways to do things without being violent.

Olmert said there is no need for an enquiry on police violence because the police did what they were supposed to. The orders were to beat up everyone there. They did it. There is no reason for a commission of enquiry to find this out.

To say they were surprised to have rocks thrown at them is ridiculous. You don't go into a place with horses and riot gear when you are expecting peaceful demonstrators.

The kids think they are the modern day Maccabees, saving Israel from the vicious government. The government needs to save face because they aren't stopping the rockets coming across the border. Put those 2 things together and you obviously have an altercation.

The police had to be nice to the people at the anti police-brutality rally last night, so they went out and beat up the wife of the ambassador from the Domincan Republic. No, she wasn't protesting anything. She was by her house tending her garden and the police decided she had an illegal maid and beat the crap out of her.

If that isn't bad enough, Olmert (the jerk) decided to transfer tax money to Hamastan because officially they aren't in office yet. I just told my mom on Friday that it wasn't like he was going to do it on Sunday, it was just propaganda. But no, their utter stupidity cannot be hidden for even one minute. In the same breath that he says the police brutality was the settlers fault, he then gives money to the arabs to see if they can oneup the policemen, but in central tel aviv.

The game here seems to be how many Israeli citizens can get hurt because of the Israeli government.


Yesterday I was sitting outsidea shwarma house in Haifa looking at the traffic and it occurred to me why Kadima has a chance to win in the upcoming elections.

Israelis are dumb. This was made extremely clear to me after I saw that 4 different ambulances with their lights and sirens going were cut off by incompetant drivers. One ambulance had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting someone who watched the ambulance coming towards him and then decided to walk across the street when the light turned green. A driver decided he could probably make the left turn just before the ambulance got there. I watched it from the side thinking, "there is no intelligent life here."

good friends - not so good???

Have you ever heard the expression - "I have 3 friends I can turn to in any situation: Jim, Jack and Johnny"? According to a Ynet article, those friends may have betrayed you.

Landau Kosher, a controversial kashrus organization based Bnei Brak, has published an article stating that whiskey is not kosher.

Rabbi of Brooklyn, NY, one of the commentors on the article, said that there is no problem with bourbon in any case. it is only a problem with scotch.

My little brother once asked a rabbi a question about using baby wipes on Pesach. The rabbi went out of his way to answer a different question and told him he couldn't use them on shabbos. All I'm saying is that sometimes rabbi's answer questions that nobody asked.

However, the question of whiskey being kosher is a real one. An Israeli friend once asked me how I knew that whiskey was kosher if there was no symbol on it. I explained that it is mesora. All Americans know that straight whiskey is kosher. It's something we learned in yeshiva without asking a single rabbi. The vybish (woman's drink, also known as liqueur) you have to be careful of, but not the real stuff.

Fobidding crown royal, for example, would be akin to saying chulent can't be eaten Friday night.
מנהג ישראל כדין הוא

Of course, it may be much ado about nothing. I would compromise and agree to ban scotch if they promise not to mess with bourbon for a good 20 years.

While you are up finishing your supply just in case the psak goes against rational thinking, listen in to http://www.bootliquor.com/ Sometimes you just need a drink.

not the mashiach

Apparantly we have just discovered for sure that I am not the mashiach. I know this is disappointing to all of you (except my wife), but I am dealing with it rather well. My neighbor mentioned it to me first and said that now I didn't have a chance to be king (to the relief of my wife).

This was all revealed a couple days ago when Rav Kaduri passed away. Rav Kaduri was a known kabbalist. Not the kind that milks you out of all your money and calls you Esther, but the kind that just learned Kabbala. I actually don't know what kabbalists do, but I read a story about Babi Sali's grandfather that he flew across the sea on a flying carpet because he missed his boat. I used this story against a sefardi who told he he didn't believe that the bais hamikdash courtyard expanded to fit more people then could physically fit in. He said it was scientifically impossible, and therefore it was allegorical and meant that a lot of people were there. I answered him, that I don't know exactly what happened back then, but if believes that Babi Sali's grandfather flew across the sea on a flying carpet then he should have no problem believing that 100 people could fit in a place where only 50 people could physically fit.

Anyways, that's all tangental. The crux of the story is that I have never met Rav Kaduri. I've never even seen him (other then a picture in the paper). I heard that Babi Sali and also some other rabbi promised Rav Kaduri that he would meet mashiach. I also heard that he met mashiach either last year or a couple months ago. That basically knocks me out of the running. It also knocks a bunch of other people who I know out of the running. But for all of you who have actually met Rav Kaduri, it is possible that you are the mashiach and we are waiting for you.

(unless, of course, he met mashiach ben yosef and they haven't annointed a mashiach ben david yet. But I'm not holding my breath)

hamas = PA

The majority of palestinians voted that they preferred Hamas to any of the alternatives. Hamas kicked Israel out of Gaza, sure they had a lot of help from Fatah, but the Fatah leadership kept condemning the actions. Now that they have succeeded in making Israel kneel once by leaving Gaza, they plan on doing it again and again. They have already threatened that if any of the tax monies that Israel has promised not to hand over was late, then there would be a lot of dead bodies in Israel. Israel responded by handing over the money and declaring that it was because the new government hadn't been formed yet. But if Hamas is given the government, then they won't pass over another penny. (Laugh. snort. whatever.) Olmert doesn't have the cajones to stand up to Hamas. He helped push the Gazan retreat and now he is giving money to official terrorists. These are the same terrorists who Israel spent a lot of effort getting the world to condemn. Now that Israel has to deal with them, and they will deal with them, they will lose all their credibility. Especially after the first suicide bomber paid for with money that Israel collected for them.

My mom asked me if I was nervous now that Hamas was in power. To tell you the truth, I don't see any difference between this regime and the prior regime. Is there anyone who believes that the past government was not involved in terror attacks? The al aqsa brigades is the Fatah military wing. The Hamas also has military and political wings.


One thing that the elections show us very clearly is that when democracy is given to an immoral group of people, they will vote immorally. Remember, when God thought the people of Sodom and Armora were bad, he didn't try to install a democracy, he wiped them all out. Complete nuclear destruction, and as far as we know only 1 person survived. Even today, thousands of years later the effect of that destruction can be seen in the dead sea area. This desert full of nothing is the place the Torah describes as having the greenest pastures and fresh water.

What we learn from this is democracy will not fix moral corruption, only death can do that.

public apology

A couple days ago I published a disagreement that I was having with my older brother and sister-in-law on my blog. I now feel that was the wrong place to put it. If I had something to say to him in writing, I should have used e-mail.

The discussion was of a private nature and I was wrong to start it in a public place.

This blog will not be used to air dirty laundry anymore.

analysis: players and pawns

First of all it is worthwhile to check out today's Dilbert, just to give you a little perspective. Though to be completely honest, the thought of Hitler at an ice rink doesn't bring forth any images whatsoever.

Who are the pawns?

We have a situation going on in this country where the teenage religious youth are being callously played against the middle by both sides in a massive power struggle that is threatening to upset the delicate balance on which this country was built.

Any psychologist could virtually predict the moves that known idealistic youth are going to make given certain inputs. That being the case, both the police and the settler leadership should have been prepared for the recent Hevron uprising and what will follow. There are psychological ways to deal with these issues and there are plenty of marketing ways to stem the tide and present a completely different picture. This should be a fight of amongst adults - people who think with their heads. The problem here is not one of incompetence, it is an overabundance of competance. The political echelon wants to incite the youth so they get good pictures showing that settler youth are no better then the arabs they constantly point at. The settler leadership wants to use the children to make it seem like these are little children who are acting irresponsibly, while they work the diplomacy side in a more reasonably acceptable fashion.

The kids are pawns.

Having worked with teenagers in a youth group setting, I have seen first hand how easy it is to manipulate and confuse them. It is simple to quote facts without basis and how to present unrealisms as realities by twisting emotions. If you learn your subject matter, you can figure out exactly what to say to push buttons and cause reactions.

This is how teenage kiruv works, this is how cults work and this is how drug dealers work.

Other pieces in the game include

• the adult settlers who by and large moved to the settlements for an improved lifestyle and because of their zionistic ideals.
• joe secular israeli who by and large have their opinions formed by the mass media.
  

Who are the players?

According to a ridiculous book that I read, the bad guys are souls of the eruv rav. (All of whom died in the desert.) The book wasn't as ridiculous in its content as much as it was in its presentation. It was what I will describe as a powerpoint book. The first footnote on the first word of the book was something like: The structure of this book makes it impossible to use proper grammer and sentence structure. Basically, each sentence or fragment was its own paragraph. It used manipulative phrases such as "we both know," to bring the reader to the side of the author. The book was written in an impact style, no meat - just statements which implied facts. Just like a powerpoint presentation. I know of companies that have banned powerpoint because of its ability to capture an audience without telling them anything.

You can see the marketing here, trying to make a large impression on maleable minds.

The government, with its endless resources of youth psychologists knows exactly what to do and how to do it to cause a reaction. Announcing the 2000 police officers are going to remove 20 children from the Hevron marketplace is one example of a way to cause a huge brawl. Haven't they ever heard of PsyOps?

Remember one of the methods that the IDf uses to get terrorists to give in? It is not a threat that we are coming in with 2000 people. It is asking a neighbor to go and talk to the guy and explain the reality of the situation. That works because the terrorist know that when there are 15 people from an elite IDF unit outside he will not escape alive if he tries to make a break for it. He is able to hear the voice of reason coming from someone who speaks his own language.

We are looking at an example of cynical manipulation of teenagers as pawns in a serious bid for power. The messianic zionist Israelis who are trying to bring the Mashiach by their love of the land against the anti-messiah post-zionist Israelis who are trying in their own defeatist way to become a proud member of the European community.




In this game, I am not a player, I am an observer.

the (sucky) legitimate government of Israel

I've been reading a number of "right-wing" blogs that are trying to delegitimacize the current government in Israel. The basic idea is that since the public voted for the Likud and not Kadima and kadima only has 13 knesset members then Kadima had no right to take the prime ministership (and government ministeries...) with them. The ideas are based around the fact that the current government sucks, is a minority, and is going against the ideas of the people who voted for them. People also feel that the Likud should have retained the prime ministership after Sharon dropped out instead of going to Olmert. These are nice and interesting ideas and reflect the ignorance that people have of the political process.

Even though the government might suck, it is quite legitimate. As we've mentioned before democracy does not equal morality. In a democratic Palestinian society, where the government votes to destroy Israel (or even in an Athenian democracy with a referendum of all the people) , that would not nullify their status as a democracy. It would mean that they are bad people who vote for bad things. We should then hope that our elected representatives order our army to wipe them out first.

What they're missing here is that if any other person in the Knesset could have gotten 60 MKs to support him then he can take over the prime ministership. The leadership of the country has less to do with who's in charge of any specific party as much as who can pull a majority together.
As such, after the public voted for their favorite parties to be MKs the MKs then vote on who becomes prime minister. A no confidence vote win is when 61 or more MKs vote that they do not support the government anymore. At that point either the government falls and there are new elections within 90 days or someone else can come up with 61 or more supporters and the President will appoint him prime minister.

Nobody voted for the Likud to head the government. Knesset members voted for Sharon to head the government. Sharon appointed Olmert as his replacement, as stipulated by Israeli law. He could have appointed anybody he wanted from any party, including Shimon Peres.
If another member of the Likud had the support of 61 MKs and the leader of the Likud didn't, then that person, not the party, would have taken over the government. If a party with 2 MKs (I think that's the minimum) could make enough deals to get enough support, then they would be prime minister.

The Likud tried to make a deal with Labor offering the prime ministership to Amir Peretz, but he refused to play ball (a dumb idea from his perspective, in my opinion, but probably very good for Israel as a whole and society at large).

good business year

I had my end of year review today at work. I summarized my work for the year in 4 short sentences. The hard part is sitting down and thinking, did I do 4 sentences worth of work this year which are worth mentioning? Then my boss asked me if I actually thought that one of the items I mentioned was worth mentioning or not because it didn't seem to him like I spent that much time on it. I explained that I felt it was a very important step for the company, so even though it only represented a small amount of time, it represented a significant contribution.

All in all it was a very good year for both the company and I. I explained to them where I wanted to be in 5 years and how that fit in with my vision of the company. Obviosuly I didn't explain my whole plan, because then they would have had me commited.

I can imagine that this is how it works with God when you die. You sit down opposite him and a ministering angel and he gives you your grade for the year and how he thought you did. Then you get to tell God what you liked and didn't like about your life. There's a discussion about how things could have been better and what the next 2000 years will be like.

Then he gives you your harp and sends you to heaven.
Or he doesn't.

the end

Is the world on its way to an end? What exactly does that mean?

In this past weeks Torah Protion, Yaakov wanted to tell his children about the end of days, but the midrash says he was unable to because the divine countenance left him. He suspected his children of being sinners, but they said shema yisrael hashem elokeinu hashem echad. He was then comforted and gave them their blessings. That is the midrashic explanation, but if you look at the text of the pasuk, which my chavrussa (study partner) likes to do, you will see a slightly different story. Yaakov said he would like to tell them about the end and then they gather around and he starts talking about each one of his sons in what is commonly called the birchas yaakov. According to the textual explanation, the paragraphs about the sons, the fathers of the tribes of Israel, is a prophesy of the future and what will come at the end of days. There have been reports that many of the "lost tribes" have been found in rural, secluded places living as Muslims, Christians or other such folly. It would be interesting to see which of this prophesy actually applies in today's terms to the people who they are claiming belong to various tribes. Is the warrior tribe in northern afghanistan really Gad, about whom he said "Gad is a unit of soldiers?"

What is very interesting is the other major religions are also expecting an end of the world, or something similar.
Christians believe in the apocolypse, which basically includes a world war until Jesus comes to save the whole world.
I just read about the Hidden Imam who Muslims believe will come with Jesus. (sounds like Eliyahu Hanavi with Mashiach)


In any case, my point is that the majority of religious people in the world today believe that great upheavals will be coming. Whatever form it is in is irrelevant, because everyone knows that they are right and they may just be in their own parallel.

What happens in the next year will be very exciting and scary. Living in Israel, I think we have center stage to the upcoming fireworks.

no biz with robertson

Israel has decided not to do business with Pat Robertson, a Christian evangelical, because he said that he believes that the prime inister was struck down by God as a punishment for the disengagement.

What a load of crap.

Since when did belief in God forestall a business relationship in Israel? Israel!!??!
Just because someone in the tourism ministry disagrees with his assessment of the situation should not affect a business relationship. He didn't say he hopes the prime minister gets struck down. He didn't say he's happy the prime ministers brain started bleeding.
That happened without him.
All he did was give religious reasons why the prime minister cannot stand up today. I don't see that belief as preventing any relationship with the State of Israel. People who believe in God, whether they be Jewish or other religion, must know that when the prime minister of Israel is struck with a serious medical condition that it is not by accident. Some people may believe that we don't know if it was the disengagement or some other reason, but all religious people who believe in divinical intervention must know that God was involved in this stroke and then further brain bleed.

Sure calling the prime minister a sinner isn't going to get you points, but he is an admitted sinner. If you've been following the news recently you'll see a lot of pictures of Sharon wearing a kippa. As if the newspaper portraying him as religious will confuse God and cause him to wonder if he struck the wrong person.

muslim israeli fighter pilot??? I think not.

The funny thing is that if it was done without the press and without making a big deal about it, I don't think I would have had any issues with it. But stick it in the paper and make it into an issue and I certainly don't want a Muslim defending Jews.

It has worked in the past, but only temporarily. Whenever Muslims swear to defend Jews it has turned into a temporary halt on the persecution, but never has it meant anything more then when Arafat declared his intentions for peace with Israel.

"It's good for the moment to say things like this, but when it gets down to it, we really want them all dead"

If he hadn't turned to the media, though, it would have been a different story. It could have been a nice arab boy who wanted to help his home country Israel and kill other Muslims. It could have been worked out with supervision and care (and maybe a remote control automatic pilot, in case his plane suddenly got lost over tel aviv). Do a security check to make sure that neither he nor his family or friends are in the employ of Iran. And finished. Once it's public, I don't want to hear about it anymore. It becomes a cause for the liberals and self-haters who preach equality when they don't have a clue as to the meaning of that word.


And he went to the media before he got turned down, because he wanted to make this into an international spectacle. The IAF was right in not taking him under those circumstances.

tenth of teves

On this tenth day of teves, when the evil nevuchadnetzer started the siege against Jerusalem, we should pray.

We should pray that Jerusalem is besieged no more.

We should pray for strength and fortitude against our enemies who seek to destroy us.

We should pray for mashiach to come and bring us back the Jerusalem that we lost back then.

And we should all say Amen.

brother in law's stroke

Just to clarify, my brother in law recently had a stroke and he:

• was not old and fat
• disclaims any knowledge of Shimon Peres
• Couldn't have been bribed even if he wanted to be
• did not give away the land of Israel
• was not hit by any pulsa denora.

Even with all of that, I would not dare to suggest that it was a medical accident. It is obviously part of God's greater plan. We may never know the reason why he and his family (and mine) are suffering like this, but I would say that calling it an accident desecrates the natural workings of the world.

the why of the stroke

A big topic in Israel right now is why did the Prime Minister have a stroke. The common answers are (listed from physical to metaphysical):

• He was fat and old
• Shimon Peres
  
• Real evidence was found against him that he accepted bribery
• He gave away the land of Israel
• The pulsa denura got him

While Shimon Peres is the most obvious and logical answer, I'm looking at the land of Israel answer, as Pat Robertson (the christian evangelist) believes. This theory was given a huge boost in possibility when Rabbi Weinreb of the OU discounted it immediately and completely. When an Orthodox Jewish rabbi hears nonsense coming out of a preachers mouth, he usually laughs and ignores it. When he hears something correct that's when the denial comes in hard and fast. You will never hear Rabbi Weinreb get up and declare (for example), Pat Robertson is a nutcase Mary couldn't have been a virgin.

Now a commonly asked question, mostly jeeringly, is if God is punishing the evil, sinning, Prime Minister, why didn't he stop the withdrawal? A stroke a month or two before the evacuation would have done wonders for the communities of the FGK (former gush katif). The answer to that is obvious with a quick glace through history.
Scroll back to Titus, who destroyed the second Bais Hamikdash (temple). God let him through the door to do his dirty work. And then (according to tradition) while he was boasting at how he killed the Jewish God, a little mosquito flew in through his nose and hammered at his brain, driving him slowly insane.
None of the rabbis got up after that and said, we're not really sure why Titus died. Maybe it was just a coincidence.
The fact is that God decided the Bais Hamikdash had to be destroyed and he sent Titus. God decided the Jews in Spain needed to be shaken up and he sent the Inquisition. God decided that the Jews needed a smack and bang the gas chambers of Germany sprang up. Exactly what caused God to get mad at us, I'm not really sure. But we know things like this don't happen by accident.

Did God want the communities of Gaza torn down and their residents sent off to find dig new root? The answer is obviously yes. We did what we could. We davened, applied political pressure and our bribery-laden lobbying didn't work either.

God saw what was offered and he said, "Nope. Gaza's going down."

That didn't let the guy who implemented it off the hook, though. He didn't do it in the nicest of ways as the latest Comptroller's report should have told us. He ignored the rabbis who told him that it was improper for a Jewish government to do this. After he was finished God's work. God looked at him and said, you scum bag. And then he smacked him.

This is the second prime minister who had the pulsa denora thrown at him. It is also the second prime minister in a row to be working close with Shimon Peres.

god bless

First of all, God bless Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. May he live till 120 years old. Hopefully he'll have enough sense now to retire and live out the rest of his life playing with his grandchildren.

God Bless Randal McCloy who was the lone survivor of the West Virginian exploding mine mishap. He's in critical condition and needs our hopes and prayers. If you have a free moment, find out what hospital he's in and send a card.

God Bless Jerry Groves, Marshall Winans and the rest of them all who did not make it out of the mine alive, as was first reported. They have moved from almost heaven, to the real thing.

God Bless Terry Helms who was first reported to be the only casualty.

God bless the friends and family of the miners who have been suffering through this tragedy.

As old grampa isy would say "you can't win for losing" and "I'm slow as molasses and just as slow"

i wuz tagged

I reckon it would be wrong and unsportsmanlike to ignore muqata's meme tag.
Here goes:
Four jobs I've had in my life

• Day Camp Counselor
• Chicken plucker
• Database Programmer
• Ice Cream scooper

Four movies I could watch over and over:
(I haven't seen a movie in a while, so bear with me here)

• Star Wars
• Chasing Amy
• Die Hard
• A Few Good Men

Four places I've lived

• Morgantown, WV
• Oak Park, Mi
• Milwaukee, Wi
• Maalot, Israel

Four TV Shows I Love to watch

• Sledgehammer
• The Cosby Show
• Knight Rider
• A-Team

Four places I've been on vacation

• A rodeo in Cody, Wyoming
• Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado
• Rock City, Georgia (borders 7 states, very cool place)
• Disney World

Four websites I visit daily

• www.RockofGalilee.blogspot.com
• www.ynetnews.com
• www.drudgereport.com
• www.dilbert.com

Four of my favorite foods

• Cherry Pie (Slap your grandma good!)
• Pizza
• American steak
• homemade peanut butter

Four places you'd rather be

• The hills (wait...I am in the hills :-)
• in bed
• on the beach
• hiking

Four books I'll read over and over again

• Breishis
• Shmos
• Bamidbar
• Devarim

(Nothing against vayikra, but it's my least favorite of the 5 and if I have to leave one out)

Who gets tagged?

1. Dag
2. Sal (You can post as anonymous in the comments)
3. Train Talk

back in the strip

Well it seems like we're fully entrenched back in gaza again. We've retaken Alei Sinai and Dugit. When I was last in the area, actually 2 times ago - the last time I helped setting up a moved greenhouse, but that's neither here nor there-, we went to the religious beach. Not a separate beach. There were both males and females there. What made it a religious beach (as it was called by the secular guy who we asked where we could find a beach) was the fact that most of the people were voluntarily wearing clothes. Women were covered properly (even in the water) and men were in the water without shirts. It was a very cool experience.

Back to politics.

Now that the plishtim have convinced us to retake part of the strip, how much longer before they convince us that we need a permanent presence there. Maybe we should build settlements there so we have an excuse for constant military protection. OH WAIT. we tried that already. The prime minister decided that it was in our best interest not to be there anymore. I must have missed the newspaper coverage on how wrong he was.

Maybe next time we take it over and start settlements, we will build one in Rafiach, so as to prevent terrorists coming in over the Egyptian border. What a concept, settlements for peace. The more settlements that are built, the less land they have to shoot rockets.

Unless you feel that we should go back to the original partition plan of 1948 and accept the "suicide borders." Then the Arabs will be happy. They think they have enough militarty might now to finish off what they tried back then. Throwing Israel into the sea. As Ahmadinejad said, the State of Israel was Europe's Final Solution as they hiped the Arabs would get rid of the couple Jews they left behind.

Stupid Europeans. Stupid Iranians. Stupid Prime Minister.
We're not leaving yet.

honorable mention

We got mentioned in havel havelim for the first time this week.
Check it out.

its the end of chanukah

I'd say we had a very enjoyable chanukah. The kids got a bunch of presents, we saw family and friends and life is good. Last night we gave my 2 son's action figures. The first one got a crappy spiderman and the second got a cool ninja turtle (called tzavei ninsha in Hebrew). The crappy spiderman, was not purposefully crappy. My wife, God bless her, said that it cost the same amount as the ninja turtle., but it was so crappy they didn't even paint the back of it, His back was all red and it broke within 2 minutes of him getting it.

You might expect torrents of tears and hysterics from the first son who is prone to those kind of fits. Especially when his brand new spiderman's leg snapped away from the body. (I couldn't find the piece that broke off, so it is possible it was broken to begin with). He came over to me and asked very nicely if I could fix it. So I told him I would have to fix it overnight. We decided it wasn't fixable and we should get him a decent toy instead, so this morning he had his choice of either spiderman or a ninja turtle like his brother and he picked the ninja turtle. I'm very proud of him.

Last night was also a milestone night in other parts of the family. My oldest daughter(7) slept at her friend's house for the first time. My wife was very nervous about it, but she slept there the entire night and didn't even call home once.

8 candles up, 8 candles down. Finish this holiday and start getting ready for...Purim!!

celebrating the new year

Nobody wished me a Happy New Year when I came into work this morning. Which isn't that odd, I suppose as we celebrated the new year in September. But there is still a festive atmosphere in certain sectors in Israel that do celebrate the new year in a way quite different then the Jewish New Year is celebrated.
What is most odd is that certain Israelis take pride in not celebrating the Christian New Year. I just heard my boss (not religious) explain to his children (after they heard someone talk about parties last night) that we as kosher jews do not celebrate goyish holidays.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I heard on shabbos that a former gazan rabbi is preaching that the modern eirav rav (mixed multitude of non Jews who left Egypt) is the non-religious and that they don't have a Jewish soul. I heard this third person, and I'm sure that I didn't get the whole concept, but it just strikes me as missing part of the picture.

I see it in a different light that one of the major problems of the Jews before the exile was the splitting of Judea and Israel into separate kingdoms. Or, if you will, into the religious and non-religious kingdoms. The need to stay unified, even while disagreeing is of utmost importance to the Jewish nation. It is possible to vociferously disagree and even to reject someone's opinions and philosophy out of hand and still love them as people. Just because you reject their basis of life does not mean that they are to be treated as trash.

We had a great time this weekend first with our chanuka party, who's secret location was the Old City of Jerusalem. All those who saw a large group in the Old City may have witnessed our Chanukah party. Or they may have seen a bunch of old epople wearing Crusader crosses on their name tags. (different group)
A good time was had by all and the weather was good enough that we gathered outside and spent a good 2 hours together.

Shabbos in Karmei Tzur was enjoyable and relaxing. After shabbos we got pizza in efrat and headed back to the galilee, where space is open and cows roam free.

It's good to be home.

where to light

Tonight we are beginning our journey southward, towards the holy city of Jerusalem.
The itinerary includes Ramat Bet Shemesh, where we will visit the recovering brotherinlaw and his family. We are planning on visiting some other friends there as well, if it isn't too late.

As it is written, you should stop in the courtyard to prepare yourself before entering the holy.

We will then head into the kedusha itself where we will be staying in Har Nof. (Up to this point we will still not seen any native Hebrew speakers). Hopefully, I'll be able to make it to the kotel, but it depends on how the family settles. The big question is where to light candles. Harav Yoylee, (he performs weddings for a small fee but isn't licensed so it has no weight in this country) thinks I should light candles where I sleep. But I can't eat until I light candles. So I may light at brother benji's. I don't think I'm planning on eating before I get to jlem anyways, so food may be a non-issue.
Friday morning we have the haylika family chanukah party. We have adopted a no-presents policy this year because the 20 shekel grab bag is the only thing that makes sense and I feel that if any if the atendees wants something for 20 shek, he should buy it.

The location of the party will not be mentioned here for security reasons.

After the party we will be heading into the Israeli territories near Hevron. We will be returning the the Galilee, God Willing on Saturday night.

We shouldn't be missed.

key to happiness

As everyone knows, except women, the key to happiness is meat. Women have an affinity for chocolate and ice cream and that makes them incapable of true happiness. In the good old days, when we were allowed to sacrifice animals to show ourselves and God how much we love him, the gemara says that there is no happiness without meat.

Israelis don't understand meat. They think that chicken and meat are the same. Chicken is not meat. Chicken is a bird. It tastes good, if prepared correctly, but it doesn't bring the eater up to the highest levels of spirituality and pure unadulterated joy that a side of beef does.

Chicken is the sitra achra. It looks kind of like meat and can be prepared similarly, but it doesn't have the חיות that meat has. Chicken, and even turkey (the buffalo of the chicken family), are scrawny little nothings. It is a trick. Don't be fooled.

I feel that when the rabbonim put chicken (and other birds) into the same category as meat they did Judaism a great disservice. They were trying to protect us from mistaking a chicken for meat and then seeing people eat chicken with milk would eat meat with milk. They had good intentions, but you know what path is paved with good intentions.

happy chanukah

It's the first day of chanukah and it is going very well so far, though I forgot to say al hanisim this morning.

The kids didn't cry when we gave them presents, even though we got them sharing presents and not individual ones.

My wife surprised even me when she bought our daughters a self-piercing kit.

We have friends coming up tonight from jlem for the second lighting and a festive holiday meal. Hopefully, we'll figure something to do with them tomorrow afternoon.

Friday morning is the official Israeli family chanukah party. Brother benji might not make it, because of his convalescing. (BTW did I mention they freed him from the confines of the hospital?)We are planning on having the greater part of the Israeli family there. 2Ares (who is single by the way if you happen to know anybody), and SRA will be there with his wife shanyaz.blogspot.com/ and cousin Justin (TUGS) will be showing as well. On the other side of the family, Yoylee and family and Shira with her new hottie (or so she says) husband will both be attending as well.

We have drafted a no-presents policy for the adults because the grab bag makes sense financially, but if you really wanted a 20 shekel item, go and buy one.

For shabbos chanuka we are going to be leaving the galilean heartland and go visiting settlements. While we are not going to heading towards Muqata's beloved Samaria, we are planning a foray deep into the jungle of Judea. A little village about 10 minutes from Hebron is the destination. The last time we were there, about 3 years ago, we heard helicopters all shabbat and found out afterwards that a multi-felafel soldier was killed in Hevron, the highest ranking soldier to be killed up to that point. May his neshama have an aliyah and may the wicked enemies of Israel rot in pig guts till eternity. (and let them go to hell and have shoes thrown at them. Amen.).

For those who don't know, a felafeled soldier is one who has gotten more stripes then fit on his shirt, so they take off all his stripes and congratulate him by giving him a felafel.

Hopefully, though I don't know if there will be time, we will make it to Hevron to discuss political, social and religious issues with our forefathers in the maaras hamachpeila (cave of the patriarchs).

my Jewishness.

They've never been able to categorize me before, I don't know why they thought they could do it now.
http://www.nerdtests.com/mq/take.php?id=200


Left Wing Modern Orthodox: 15%
Right Wing Modern Orthodox: 49%
Left Wing Yeshivish/Chareidi: 61%
Right Wing Yeshivish/Chareidi: 29%

This means you're: Huh?

What does it mean?
I give up. What are you?

Comparison Summary:
Of the 1875 unique test takers...
For: Left Wing Modern Orthodox
76% scored higher, and 22% scored lower.
The average Raw Score is: 30.3, your's was: 12.

For: Right Wing Modern Orthodox
75% scored higher, and 23% scored lower.
The average Raw Score is: 46.3, your's was: 36.

For: Left Wing Yeshivish/Chareidi
44% scored higher, and 54% scored lower.
The average Raw Score is: 40.3, your's was: 43.

For: Right Wing Yeshivish/Chareidi
44% scored higher, and 54% scored lower.
The average Raw Score is: 24.0, your's was: 23.

a shabbos from heaven

This was supposed to be a very laid back shabbos for us. It had been a stressful week and I was looking forward to the relaxation that shabbos provides.
My mother-in-law came to visit, as she was in for a week visiting my hospitalized brother-in-law, who is doing very well. He is hoping to get released to today. The tehillim are working (or else God didn't really want to kill him this time.)
Anyways, back to the story. So my mother-in-law was sleeping in our guest suite downstairs, which isn't really a basement because it is on the lower groound floor.
The rain was coming down like gishmei bracha (rains of blessing) is supposed to. At 6:30 AM there is a loud bang and all the power went out. No, we weren't attacked by terrorists - it was God himself. The main breakers had jumped so we were without lights or heat for all shabbos. My motherinlaw gets up at 7:30 and steps into - not just a puddle of water, but a full lake. Two inches deep, in the shallow section. The entire guest suite had flooded. But none of the walls were wet and there are no drains in the floor. We couldn't figure out where the water could possibly be coming from.
I ended up davening at home because shul was mostly over by the time we gave up sweeping the water out of the house.
Our neighbors invited us over for lunch, because they had lights and heat, so we brought over all of our food (the chulent was still warm) and had an enjoyable meal.

All in all it was an enjoyable, though stressful, shabbos from shomayim.

democracy does not equal morality or intelligence

First of all I want to let everyone know that I spoke with my brotherinlaw Benji and he thinks he is recovering nicely.
Beseech God, you never know when he may listen.

I've been hearing a lot of comments on various blogs that Netanyahu's move to ban Feiglin from running on the Likud list is undemocratic. This follows all the comments that Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza was undemocratic. People seem to mistake democracy for morality or intelligence.

Democracy means the decision rest on the votes of the majority of people eligible to vote. In a representative democracy (such as the US), the people vote for representatives and then anything that those representatives vote on reflect the will of the people. If it doesn't reflect their will, the people are not supposed to vote for them again. In a parliamentary democracy (such as in Israel) the people vote for a party, the leaders of the party determine who the representative list is. In this system, someone who has a lot of supporters among the leaders of the party will be sent to the parliament, even if all the people who support the party hate him.

Removing Feiglin from running on the Likud is a dumb thing to for netanyahu to do, because after losing who knows how many votes to kadima, he is now trying to alienate another large group of people (17% of the party voted for him).

Blackmail and making deals is also part of the democratic process. The way that you get people to vote for your proposal is by promising to vote for their proposal. (quid pro quo)

On that point, there was nothing undemocratic about the withdrawal from Gaza. It may have been unethical. It may not have been intelligent, but the majority of knesset members certainly voted yes.

On that point, if the majority of Germans vote to kill all Jews, that is also democratic. Wrong, but democratic.

If the majority of voters vote that black people should be enslaved, it is a democratic decision. Wrong, but democratic.

People were not given the ability to determine moral societal values. Those were given to us by God, in an unalterable book. The model of the world is based on God, a single ruler over everything. In the animal kingdom, we have the Lion is the king of beasts. The human world used to believe in the "Divine right of Kings" (Charlamange).

When Jesus said (or so I've heard), "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," he was basically saying that the laws of God are not meant to be followed. We, as Jews, instantly rejected him because of that. That is saying that it is impossible to punish anyone, thereby creating a lawless society, because who among us is without sin.

While democracy is not inherently good or bad, it is based on the values of the voting population. Therein lies the intrinsic problem of a democracy.

israeli categories

When I came to Israel, I was told I had to define myself in a sociopolitical category.
My choices, as a religious ashkenazi, were either:

• dati leumi (national religious), which apparantly means that I believe that the State and the Messiah are one. We were already redeemed, just the guy who was supposed to tell us never showed up.
• Chareidi (ultra orthodox), which apparantly means that I believe the state has no right to exist, I don't work, don't go into the army, leech off of society, and am generally despised by everyone.

There is a sub-category of national religious called "mustard" which are people who are as religious as an ultra-orthodoxer, but even so believe that the state is the religion. But we won't get into that.

It seems to me that there are a lot of religious Jews out there (maybe mostly from midwest America, though one of my readers will claim that in the south there are normal Jews as well, but we just look at them funny and say, "inbred") who do not fit into any of these categories. This leaves us as ill-represented. I moved to Israel because of religious reasons, secular zionistic reasons played a part in it, but religious zionism was not part of the decision process.

I would guess that makes me chareidi. Except when people ask me what kind of Jew I am and I tell them chareidi, they laugh. Apparantly, I don't much look like a chareidi. And I work. I didn't go to the army, but they didn't ask me nicely to go. Also I use a suf when I daven and layn. And I don't know the rambam by heart. I tried going through two of rav kook's sefarim and didn't understand a word.

My children are going to be dati leumi because we moved to a dati leumi community and send them to dati leumi schools. But I'll probably be able to give them a little perspective, which they'll happily ignore.

israeli politics

The big question in Israel for the next few months is who to vote for. This is not at all similar to the same question in the US, where you have 40% conservatives who always vote Republican and 40% liberals who always vote Democrat and then 20 percent of the population are swing voters. They tend to vote for the person who they like personally, irrelevant of the actual issues.

In Israel it does not work that way. The platforms of the political parties in general do not represent a broad spectrum of policy, but rather they focus on an issue and everything else is ignored. For example, the Likud is known as a right-center party. I believe that specifically means they are anti giving land to the Palestinians, but not so much. How do they feel about abortion? It's probably split. How do they feel about social programs? also split. Difference between big government and privatization? Most of them don't know what that means.

How are these people supposed to agree on a budget if they don't agree on any issues? What happens is the head of the party decides how he wants to vote on these issues and if it's considered important he imposes party discipline making everyone in the party vote his way.

Shinui, on the other hand, is anti-religious. That is their platform. They officially have no policy on disengagement, or government or anything else, except that they don't want to be told whether they can eat pig while driving on shabbat or not.

Labor looks like it is shaping up more as a replacement for meretz as a true social-democratic party, where they are interested in creating a bigger welfare state then already exists. Except if you hear the voices coming out of the party, it is Peretz, the new leader, who is advocating this and no one else is really sure what to make of it.

Shas's platform is black people are cool, and give us money for our own school system. And you're all a bunch of racist bastards, and we need more money for our schools.

There is no party that I like in Israeli politics, I don't think they focus on issues at all and even when they do it is generally a one person opinion, not a party platform.

With this vacuum in who to vote for, degel HaTorah, whose sole purpose in the government is to strengthen Torah institutions, is looking more plausable. Since there is no viable party to vote for, why not vote to strengthen Torah Judaism.

A vote for degel haTorah is a vote against Shinui.
A vote for degel haTorah is a vote against Labor.
A vote for degel haTorah is sending a message to the NRP
that they're a bunch of hypocritical dogs.

I don't know who I'm going to vote for yet, but I'm leaning heavily in this direction.

Day 2 - At Home

Day 1 went significantly better then day 2, as my monitor would not even turn on this morning and after I gave up waiting for it, I switched monitors. 2 hours later the old monitor finally turned on and I was able to switch back.
Getting the kids up, dressed and to school is no small matter. Mom's probably already take this for granted, but to me it is a new experience. The girls are up for 20 minutes. They are in their room after I asked them to getr dressed, I walk into their room and they are both in pajamas. One of them (2nd grade) says it is because she could not find socks, the other (1st grade) had no excuse but was going through her closet for the third or fourth time trying to decide which skirt to wear for her tiyul today.
Playing with the kids is going fine, except that the motorcycle guy's head got kicked off and that upset number 4.
Tonight we have the gan's chanukah party and I have to find a babysitter and go, now that my wife is unable to be here at that time.
My motherinlaw is due to arrive today to visit with my brotherinlaw. He seems to be doing ok and they'll probably know the results today at some time.

busy busy

For those who haven't heard, my brother-in-law Benji had a stroke on Thursday and is in the hospital Hadassah Ein Kerem. His hebrew name is benzion yehuda ben chana rachel. If you have the chance to say a kapital tehillim or give some tzedaka or something, it can only help. The Rock of Galilee blog wishes him a refuah shleimah, a refuat henefesh and a refuat hagoof.

My wife went down to jlem to be with her brother and his wife. From what I understand, it was not a serious stroke and he seems to be recovering, though they will probably figure that out over the next few days/weeks.

The hospital doesn't seem very competant to me, though I suggested a policy of assuming competance until proven otherwise. I think they have pretty much proven otherweise.
The prime minister, Ariel Sharon, also had a stroke and is in the same hospital. I am not sure why it didn't take them 72 hours to figure out that he had a stroke.

If he is out of politics, even for the short term, that will remove a good portion of the old cancerous cells of the political establishment. Kadima's only platform is Sharon knows what he is doing. None of the people who left their political homes for kadima would be allowed back in and since they have no platform without their leader, the party would fall apart and all those people would be out of the Knesset. Of course the new crop of people is likely to be just as corrupt, if not more corrupt then the current crop. But as my rabbi likes to say, new shmootz is not like old shmootz.

Anyways, while my wife is hanging out on ben yehuda, I have assumed the mantle of Mr. Mom, once again. I am working from home, which gives me a solid 4 hours in the morning before the baby comes home from gan. and a little bit of time after they go to sleep. Today was pretty good. We played inside and out and read stories. I hope tomorrow will be as productive.

Yeshivishe pritzus

I received this apology note in my ad-sponsored hotmail account.
Oh the irony.
The text of the email says:
Dear fellow Alumni,
Regrettably, I too have fallen victim to the hidden dangers of the Internet. Unfortunately, the Evite I sent you was linked to non-tznius material. this was done by the vendor, and I of course had no idea this would happen. I apologize and commit to being ever more diligent in the future. I have terminated my association with Evite. Further information about the Melava Malka will be arriving in your home mail box and is always available at our controlled Website, I sincerely regret sending that email. Please discard the EVITE if you have not yet opened it .
Thank you and my apologies,

Stop The Trial...

Omri Sharon, the corrupt son of the corrupt prime minister of Israel requested that his sentencing for violating the election laws should not be held during the election season because it will be damaging to his political party.

Omri, Have you ever heard of chutzpah?

As if announcements that Sharon is planning on dividing Jerusalem isn't bad enough, his son is going to jail for helping his dad win the election last time.

The only thing more surprising then the request itself is that the court rejected the motion. I would assume that the powers that be are sending a message to Sharon senior, by gently squeezing his election nuts, not to vehemently deny reports of giving the Jewish capital to the Arab murderers.

Who really won here? Sharon in grabbing Peres away from Labor, or Peres in grabbing Sharon away from the Likud. Sharon's platform, kneel and kneel good, is fulfilling the wet dreams of Shimon Peres in his goal at becoming a destroyed European country. Peres who has lost at everything he has ever tried is now, with the help of the Sharon mob, finally succeeding at losing our country.

As the Iraqis like to say... "they can go to hell".

2nd grade f-word

My daughter came home from her 2nd grade upset because some kids weren't nice to her again. She finished her homework (or didn't have any) so my wife allowed her to have a friend come over. While she was out getting her friend one of the girls in her class (Israeli with no English speaking blood) called and told my wife that she was very upset because my daughter called her a F****** B****. Now this was very upsetting for my wife to hear, because we don't approve of that kind of language. This is the same girl who stole my daughter's belt one day and then blamed someone else for giving it to her. (her belt was off for a good reason, having to do with gym day, but I didn't fully get that part)

My wife asked my daghter about it later and apparantly she had never heard those words before the girl said them to her and she didn't remember the words. This is very believable because we never use those kind of words in our house, the children don't watch television and they only speak and Hebrew except in the house.

My daughters story was the girl was being very mean to her and yelling at her in Hebrew and then she said F******* B**** to my daughter who said there were no such words in English.

So my wife went to the girls house with our daughter this evening to discuss the animosity between these girls with her mom and the girls together. The girl changed her story and said actually another girl said that to her and said my daughter told her to say it. My wife has the feeling that she still wasn't being completely honest, and since she is from a non-religious family with older siblings and a television that is never shut off, she has probably heard that kind of language before.

In any case, after discussing the problem, the girls decided that they can try to be friends in school from now on.

end of an era

He who made women into into widows and children into orphans.
He who founded a movement based on senseless violence and killing .
The man they call tookie.
He's dead.

But his legend lives on.
While children read the books that tookie wrote saying how bad gangs are, his gang followers are knocking down old ladies and steraling their purses.

What is most surprising is that he did not win the Nobel Peace Prize. After all, they gave it to arafat and peres, two of the most notorious self-centered, enriching themselves on the back of the poor, individuals that should never have had the honor of standing in the same room as Yitzchak Rabin, an honorable general (who I politically disagreed with), forget about winning any degree of respectability.

Tookie represents a lot of things to a lot of people. To me he represents a silly nickname. Like the guy taking the heat in the CIA leakage case. What kind of 60 year old is called Scooter in the international press?

To born againers and NAACP folks he represents the best that their society has to offer. A bad person who is sent to life in prison and execution and then decides, maybe he'll soften up a little so God won't laugh so hard when he asks if he can get into heaven.

I'm happy that tookie is dead. But I think our death penalty system is messed up. I don't think he should have had the opportunity to write so many books or present himself as a changed man. I think he should have been dead within a week after the sentence was handed out.

Here's an ode to Tookie:

There was a fine fella named tookie
killed someone who wasn't his bookie
When arrested they said
y'all gonna be dead
He said I'm so peaceful now, lookie.

line dancing in gan

This past Saturday night number 3 had a havdala party in gan. I'm not sure what the point was, but they may have wanted to do something interactive with the parents and children. Number 3 got to choose which parent got to go with him and he chose me.

It was an entertaining evening. He didn't want me to dance with him, so I sat down and watched. The morrocan deejay (if you could call him that) turned the gan into a honky tonk and led the crowd in line dancing to Jewish music.

three steps left, kick your feet, two steps forward two steps back swing your partner round - kid slides through parent's legs. now back to back...

It was a lot of fun and the kids had obviously been practicing for a while.

counterculture and local Bnei Akiva

Did you know that counterculture is one word? Both dictionary.com and babylon list it as such.
Todays conversation on the train revolved around israeli counterculter or the lack thereof. I suggested that the religious culture in Israel was in fact a counter culture while my esteemed colleagues argued that anything that is part of and funded by the establishment could be considered counterculture.
First a dictionary defintion:
coun·ter·cul·ture ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kountr-klchr)
n.

A culture, especially of young people, with values or lifestyles in opposition to those of the established culture.

Lets look at an incident that is in the middle of happening in our Galilean village.

A matnas is a community center, kind of like a JCC. I don't know exactly how the matnas is funded or what their mandate is, but they have been providing certain services to Bnei Akiva. There was a notice posted in shul that for shabbos Irgun, which is some international hokey shabbos that bnei akivians have. The letter said that the matnas refused to print their invitation because it had the words gush katif on them. The subject of the shabbos was "continuing the spirit of gush katif" After the youths printed it somewhere else the matnas told the Komonarit (head communist girl) that they would not be supporting bnei akiva anymore and they would not be able to use their facilities in the coming year for their shabbos irgun. The letter noted (and I don't know how factually accurate this is) that the matnas is supposed to support the organization on an oirganizational level and not at a detail level. The matnas is not supporting them out of kindness, but rather it is a right of bnei akiva as a local organization to expect this support.

While this is a specific example of youth, I see this as an uphill battle for the entire dati leumi communty. To me, it seems like the dati leumi (national religious) is in fact a strong counterculture as the established culture is trying to railroad them into leaving their culture and values behind, while they are fighting to instill a distinct seperate set of values into themselves.

My Kind of Music - Ray Scott

Oh, I met this girl I swore was close to perfect.
I could see the ring, the dress, and the whole nine yards.
I had a country station on and she reached and turned it.
Said she couldnt stand the sound of a steel guitar.

We hit the town to catch an early movie.
And ol' Kris Kristofferson played the leading role.
I said "That's my man!" She said "Who's he?" I jumped up and said "Girl, we gotta go!"

She dont like to play my kinda music.
She's never heard a Waylon Jennings song.
She's never been a fan of Willie Nelson.
So there aint no way in hell we'll get along.

She told me she thinks country musics hokey.
She said "You can't dance to it, and all the songs are sad."
I cocked my eyebrow and said "You must be jokin!"
"Ain't no excuse for havin taste that bad."

Then I asked her if she'd heard of Alan Jackson.
And she said "Didn't he sing that song called 'Where Were You?'"
I said "Ya, but girl, that man's a livin' legend."
And she said "Really? I thought he was new."

She dont like to play my kinda music.
She's never heard of David Allan Coe.
She can't get enough of Whitney Houston.
And I'm thinkin "Lord, that's all i need to know."

So when the night was over i walked her to her door.
And i bid that girl an overdue farewell.
And without a good night kiss i jumped back in my truck.
Turned on some Hank and cranked it loud as hell.

She don't like to play my kinda music.
She don't know Sunday morning comin down.
She can't see what's so cool about he stopped lovin' her today.
Or angel flying to close to the ground.

She told me that she sorta likes the Eagles.
She couldn't name one hit by Johnny Cash.
No, she don't like to play my kinda music.
So i had to tell that girl to kiss my ass!

speaking in hebrew

Last night's sheva brachos was very enjoyable. The chosson walked in wearing a sling because he dislocated his shoulder during the wedding. He took some good natured ribbing for that, but he may not have understood it because it was American ribbing which Israelis, even those who speak English very well, just don't get. The Israelis wished him a refuah sheleima.

I was originally told that I could speak in whatever language I chose, but there were actually Hebrew speaking Israelis there, and people requested that I speak in hebrew, so I did. I was the entertainment for the evening. Speaking in a different language isn't just about the words that you use. I had planned an opening in English before I got started and I couldn't think of a good way to do it, so I said thanks to the people who made the party and the chosson and kallah for getting married and then launched directly into my dvar torah, which was a unique perspective on mixtures, both permitted and forbidden.

My point, which was probably lost on all, was that men and women are completely different beings and when you put them together in marriage you form an unbreakable bond. Milk and meat are prohibited together and one could say that it is similar to walking into a graveyard with your tzitzes on, milk gives life to animals and meat is dead animal. So putting a life giver with something dead is a contradiction that can't be resolved and that is why it is forbidden. Men and women are very similar in that respect. Men and women are a contradiction that is almost too great to overcome. They walk on the line of permissibility. This is why men and women can only have a real relationship after they are married, because an unmarried woman is a complete contradiction to an unmarried man. This is also why during the time of nidah, that men and women cannot have a physical relationship, because women go way over the line during that time of month and cannot coexist with men.

My bracha to the chosson and kallah was that they would be able to find the balance (they understood that I wanted to say balance because I asked how to say it in Hebrew) in marriage between the permitted and the forbidden and that they should enjoy a life of kosher mixtures.

This is my original interpretation marriage and kashrus mixed in with some life philosophy.

sheva brachas

I'm going to sheva brachos tonight for a couple who I don't know. This seems to be a very Israeli thing. The stranger thing is they asked me to give a dvar torah. I have spoken at plenty of sheva brachos before, but only once before when I didn't know the chosson or the kallah and that was a couple months ago. At least this one will be in English. Last time they didn't tell me in advance, so I gave a nice quick vort in Hebrew. What I learned from that experience is that the word intimate in hebrew is intimiut. Maybe I'll post tonight's vort here tomorrow, depending on how it turns out.

My wife has the cold that I am almost done with, so she will probably be staying home, miserable. This is not a fun cold. The cold completely blows. It's the kind that goes up to your head and encircles your brain and squeezes so that you can't think and anything that you say is suspect. It's the kind of cold where you sit at your desk with your hands over the keyboard for 5 minutes before you realize that you should probably be typing something, but you don't know what.

internet, aliyah and a little rashi

One of the primary reasons people have for not making aliyah has been solved by the Internet. A lot of people make various excuses as to why they would not or could not move to Israel. Most of these reasons are secondary. People work here, people make friends here, and people get new relatives here.

The one thing that truly scares people about living in Israel, though they may not admit it, is the lack of a country music station. Via broadband Internet, you can get high quality country radio, streaming into your computer. Now, I'll be the first to admit that it isn't the same as having a real local country station. You can't listen to radio while you're in the car. There are no Hebrew deejays or advertisements or news-breaks. But at least it's a start.

Surprisingly enough, I forgot to mention this fact to someone who was recently asking about aliyah. I think he's a reader, so now he knows. You can live in Israel and still listen to country music radio.

Parshas Lech Lecha was a few weeks ago and it deals heavily with aliyah. Rashi asks a question on the first pasuk and until I started planning my own aliyah I thought it was a great question.
The Torah says "Go for yourself from your land, your birthplace and your father's house to the land which I will show you." Rashi thought it should be the other way around, first leave your home, then your city and finally your country. Then he gives a nice deep explanation of why it is supposed to be this way.
While I was making aliyah, the thought occurred to me that the pasuk makes the most sense the way it is. God was talking to Avraham, the man of the family and the head of the household. The primary thing that he would have been concerned with was (no, not country music. All music was country back then) the economy and his earning potential. Is it possible to breach the culture gap and language differences of a different country and still put food on the table? That is what was waying on Avraham's mind. After that his concern was the local customs, friends, contacts, knowing what time the bank was open and general familiarity that he was leaving behind. That was his birthplace. Finally, the last thing on his mind was that he was leaving his family. Very important and emotional, but not somethng that would hold him back.
The pasuk is stated in a very logical order.
Now, if God was talking to Sarah then Rashi has a very good question because as a woman her priorities would have been exactly the opposite.

norman and bens path

Being sick is not fun, even when it is just a stupid cold. Last week, I did nothing when I got home from work. Just sat on the couch and was miserable. I did finish the first Harry Potter book. My 2nd grader was reading it together with my wife, and they seemed to enjoy it, so I figured I would too since I wasn't doing anything anyways. Not a bad book, though I don't know if it wasn't a bit too scary for a 2nd grader. Good author, and that little twist at the end as to who the real bad teacher kept it alive at the end.

That's the book report.

On Friday while my children were in school, my wife asked me if I would like to go hiking. We decided to go to shvil Norman, which has a sign on the side "Norman and Ben's path." It seems that Norman and Ben are/were 2 teenagers from Kfar Vradim who decided that it was more fun if you didn't follow the standard blue trail, so they painted theirs in yellow. It deviates from the official path and they marked a number of places of interest such as snow whites home and the camp of mitz petel among others.I got to do a little mountain climbing and that was fun. There was a little mifgash with a nice sign that this was in memory of Amir, who died in a biking accident.

I recommend this path to hikers who are looking for an enjoyable, not very strenuous hike, with some minor, non-required mountain climbing available. Great view. Good for children. Better without.

got a cold

We met some friends in Tel Aviv on Monday night for all you can eat steak. They forgot to cook the meat so we had to keep sending it back. Apparantly you have to tell them burnt in order to get it well done. To them "medium-well" meant mostly rare.
I should have known something was wrong because I only ate 3 steaks, a plate of chicken wings and fries.
Next morning I woke up and my throat was hurting a lot. Not because of the meat. I just got a dumb cold.

Time for prayer

As an aside, my little brother (not any of my sister-in-laws) went shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. Not only did he go shopping, he woke up at 4AM to go. Once he got to the the store, he saw that there was a long line. (like, duh) He then called a friend (also a guy) in a different state who went to stand on line at midnight and asked him to buy the item that he was hoping to get and went back home and back to sleep.

Have you ever heard the phrase metrosexual? That's what you call a guy who gets up early because he heard there's a sale. He also usually brushes his hair before going out and makes sure that his clothes all match. On his blog, he only mentioned the shopping part so we don't know about the rest.

Back on subject.
The sun is getting ready to come up over the hills of Meron. The beginning of light is starting to creep over the horizon. My #2 daughter is upstairs in the bathroom throwing up. The baby started crying that he wants his mother and will not take water from me. Number 3 asks if it is time to get up yet...

The time for prayer. Leaving behod all that is precious and dear to spend time discussing life with the creator. One of the problems living in Israel, and this could be a Galilee specific problem, is that they don't have tikkin very often at shachris. Tikkin was one of my favorite parts of American shacharis. The idea of tikkin is that someone died a couple years ago and it's a mitzva to have a shot of whiskey and a kichel instead of breakfast. Maybe it's better that they don't have tikkin here, because Israelis would probably put out some form of arak or disgusting brandy that isn't fit for anything except mixing. and heavy mixing.

The countryside is beautiful and you just know God is going to answer your prayers.

adopt a chiloni

In order to continue moving forward to the new world order, we must be prepared to move on to the next step. While we are still in the process of normalizing relations between chareidis and datis, which is happening at an exceedngly quick pace, we must prepare for the next stage, which is bringing the secular Jews on board.
Adopt a Chiloni is all about showing love to fellow Jews who are missing what we have. These are people who should be treated with respect, but at the same time we should pity them for not being able to see the forest but for the trees. It is time to break down the barriers and bring them back to the fold where they belong.
Hug a chiloni (but only of the same sex as you and in a non-intimate way). Just a random one, on the street. Tell him that you love him and you understand that he has an inner conflict. We all have that inner conflict and we can all learn to overcome it by working together. Tell that chiloni that you will be his friend from now on and that he should feel free to call you if he has any questions.

As REM once said, "shiny happy people holding hands"
Attorney General's Warning:
Random people breaking out in "We are the world" has been known to encite mean, gun-toting, meat-eating people to start shooting randomly.

what a week

Sunday morning I get to work and my production database server has crashed. I got it back up, but am not exactly sure what the cause of the problem is so during lunch I moved the database and fileserver to our backup server. No big deal, we lost about half hour of work.
I started looking at the machine and quickly figured out exactly where the problems had occurred, if not exactly the reason why the occurred. But then after looking around for a minute I realized the computer didn't have RAID, and the second harddrive was sitting there idle. I stayed an extra hour at work and pretty much things were back to normal. This is all hashgacha pratis, as you are about to find out.
Monday, I had planned on getting together with a friend in Tel Aviv. But my wife planned on taking the kids to a bambi play on monday and since the wives also wanted to get together we postponed our get together for a week.
Since I had worked late on Sunday I came home a little early on Monday (I had some things I wanted to do anyways). I stopped off and got some wings and shwarma to cook up on the grill because after an excursion with the kids my wife generally does not have time to make dinner.
As I am walking towards the house, my wife calls me. Bambi has been postponed due to inclement terrorism. They were supposed to go home and go into the bomb shelter. What should she do. Well, I got home first and looked at our bomb shelter and decided that we were not going into it. I had just moved a ton of boxes into it and I certainly was not going to move them out. It is also a very small room and we wouldn't be able to stay in there for very long without going stir crazy. I called a couple friends and they said that they don't go into their bomb shelters either. I figured that if I heard rockets hitting our neighborhood we would go in, but otherwise the odds of us being the first hit were pretty small and also an indication of God's being very pissed off at us.
No rockets hit Maalot and we had a nice bbq dinner. I made a mean spicy honey mustard sauce for the wings, and we broiled them instead of using the bbq (cause it is outside). The children slept in our room, so that we would all die together if it came down to that.

Just think for a moment about the panic that would have ensued if we had gone to Tel Aviv and left the kids with a baby sitter. Or if I would have come home at the regular time without dinner. I can just imagine them all huddling in the bomb shelter - hungry and crying.

Yesterday was pretty much a normal day, though I was too busy to write. So I wanted to let y'all know that we are still alive and well. And to think רבות מחשבות בלב איש ועצת ה' היא תקום

starving children

Sometimes when I hear about children who are starving, I get sad. Little people that rely on adults for their sustenence who, for whatever reason, don't come through. There are starving children all over the world, including in Israel.
Do I think the government is responsible for feeding them? No.
BUt I do think it is each one of our personal responsibilities to reach into our pockets and give a little something to an organization that works with people who are lacking to give them back their basic dignity and helps them feed their children.

On the other hand, when you hear about starving children it can make you smile. Who would be talking about starving children if it was commonplace? The fact that it even gets mentioned means that it is a rare occurrence.

Then there are times when I get angry. I met someone who told me he was not going to look for a job because he can't stand the Israeli government. No, not specifically the current government, the way the country is being run. So he is on welfare and planning to stay on it. And his children are hungry. And its his own damn fault.

kids

My eldest daughter refused to do her homework a couple days ago. When my wife got too frustrated to rationally deal with it she put her on the phone with me to see what could do. After asking her what the problem was, she burst into tears. Apparantly she was still refusing to do her homework even with threats of not being able to go to friends houses, no Harry Potter reading and no learning English reading. 10 minutes later, after she calmed down, she called me back. I again asked her what the problem was. She told me that the homework was too hard and it really made her angry. We discussed the problem for a little bit and we agreed that she would sit down with her mom who would help her go through them one page at a time. When I got home that evening , she only had 15 pages left. Apparantly, she had not been doing her homework for a very long time. She's almost finished and we all learned our lessons. My daughter learned that it is easier to do 2 pages of homework a day, then 10 pages a night because you didn't do it when you were supposed to. She may have learned that it is ok to ask for help, but I doubt that sunk in yet. That usually doesn't sink in until well after the teenage years are finished (my daughter is 7). We learned that instead of getting frustrated and making threats, it works a lot better to try and find out what the originating problem is and solving that. Of course threats are often still neccessary. I did find it hard to believe that she was willing to accept all the consequences I mentioned before, though it hurt her to think about it, rather then give in and do her homework that had made her angry.

Last night #2 wasn't feeling good and after she threw up at 3:30, I took her into the living room to read her a book. She went and chose "Don't cry big bird," and explained that it was appropriate because she was crying and big bird was crying.

israeli pluralism

With the Bolshovik's (read Amir Peretz) victory for the leadership of the Labour party people have started talking about pluralism, to the tune that sefardim are people too, and so are arabs, and that he will completely end discrimination in our newly pluralistic country. The problem here is seperating the various pluralisms that exist. Israel has to keep a close eye on reality and not become multi-pluralistic. Uni-pluralism, that is pluralism in one specific segment, that being the various Jewish sects ashkenazim and sefardim, datiim and chilonim, charedim and shinuim, poor and rich, women, men and children, is a very important thing for this country. After all, God gave the country to all of us.

Multi-pluralism, that is being pluralistic with different not-related sectors of people can be very dangerous. Being pluralistic and treating enemies of the state like brothers will very quickly get us stabbed in the back. You don't want to be pluralistic towards Palestinians who have declared their intent to take over Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa and Acco while chasing the Jews into the sea. You don't want to be pluralistic towards Iranians who have declared Israel a danger to the world and feel that we should be wiped off the map. You certainly don't want to be pluralistic towards animals. Some of which should be eaten, or sacrificed on a altar to our loving God, in better times and others which are meant to serve people in less tasty ways.

PLuralism, as long as it is applied correctly is a very powerful and very encouraging step. But multi-pluralism will just lead to more suicide bombings, and open hatred towards our extended hand. Let's be uni-pluralistic towards our people and monistic towards those who hate us. We can give a little love to all those in between and long as long as it has a healthy dose of reality sprayed in as well.

old friends

Two of my old high school friends have graduated an Orthodox Rabbinical school, RSA Chofetz Chaim, and became Rabbis. It is the end of a long process and the school has a big fund-raising dinner to celebrate. Each of the new rabbis sends out a letter to everyone they know in the world asking them to put a congratulatory message in the school's ad journal. It didn't say so in the letter, but assumedly they only graduate if they can raise more then the minimum amount. This is the final test as to whether they will be good rabbis or not. Some rabbis are too good, like those from the Kabbalah Center in Israel, and they go to jail. Others are just not shnorrers and they are relegated to a nice seat in a kolel. The rest learn how to play the game and collect just enough to stay happy and healthy without raising any eyebrows.

I have the feeling that my old friends are failing. The personal letter I got asking for a donation started off Dear Mr. & Mrs...,
I am not a friend of his parents who watched him grow up. I was not a senior in school when he was a freshman who forced him to call me Mister. We were in class together. We are the same age. We were friends. It is not respectful of him to call me Mister, it is down right insulting.

Maybe they don't know how to use a computer well enough to say, write first names on certain records and titles on others. Maybe the yeshiva sent it out for them and they have a stupid requirement for titles. Whatever reason they had for doing this, I am confident that the letter didn't give the feeling of "my buddy's done good, I'm going to send some money and congratulate him." The letter gave a feeling of, "We haven't talked in 10-15 years and he is sending a form letter to everyone he knows."

So why am I splitting an ad with a couple of friends? I think sometimes you have to ignore what is on the outside and realize that what has happened is that "some old buddy's done good."

datloni

I joined a learning program last night which is a mixture of daatim and people who do not follow the daat, learning mesilas yesharim together in a small group atmosphere. First, everyone sits around the table and we discuss the topic and then we break into smaller groups and discuss the text sheet (there were 8 paragraphs from different sources last night) and how we can understand it in our everyday life. Someone coined the phrase datloni for self-described chilonis who were interested in performing mitzvot as long as they didn't interfere with their lives. We also had a deck of cards under the table so if the topics weren't so interesting we could always change the format to strip poker. My wife, God bless her, is against the possibilitry of strip poker, so I probably won't be going back.

In other news, the Israeli version of Jimmy Hoffa has just been made head of the Labor party. The only reason that isn't necessarily bad news is because Peres was sent home (again).

On the rock of galilee, we believe that it was Peres who killed Rabin and we are anxiously waiting for the ballistics test to prove that.

the siddur party

Last night number 2 got her siddur. In an age old ceremony she joined her class in singing songs, putting on a show and receiving her siddur. I was there for the getting the siddur part. I missed the beginning of it because I am among the demographic of people who work for a living. I left work an hour early to get home on time, but due to a number of random acts of god, including weather, bus being late and train being late, I got there an hour and a half late.

I don't think the part that I missed is relevant. What is relevant is that before the end, my daughter saw me and got very excited that her daddy came to watch. She couldn't care less if I was there for the first part, second part or last 5 minutes. The important thing is to show up. One parent or older sibling is then supposed to help their daughter in the siddur party project. This year we made a paper brick to go on a paper bet knesset with a prayer to hashem. Each child got to make up her own prayer and with a little help from me, she chose to pray for peace in the land. It was a hard decision though, she was really leaning towards a prayer for good food before I gave a couple new suggestions.

All in all it was a fun, non-holocaustical event in which no one got thrown out of their home, murdered, spit at or in general abused for the sole reason that they were Jewish.

idealism

My wife's friend got thrown out of her home in the former gaza strip. She was one of those people who believed that mashiach would have to come before they gave away the strip and didn't do anything to prepare for the inevitable. We now know that just as pigs must have flown as Pink Floyd got back together for the Live 8, Mashiach must not have come as the Jews got expelled from their homes.

The reason I bring this up now is that the same friend is now in America, the land of the free and the home of the brave. She has 2 goals while she is there, the first (and primary reason) is to pump an Israeli seminary that recently opened its doors to American students. The second goal is to raise awareness about the Katifian Holocaust and to tell her story. She is an idealist, and probably will not charge a shul for standing in front of a crowd and telling them how it is.

I think idealism has a role in life as long as there is a big chunk of realism thrown in, so the idealist actually stands a chance. Too much idealism and they will accomplish nothing. There is no such thing as all good. To accomplish a goal you must understand how the world works in terms of that goal and play the game correctly so that you will be able to take advantage of the weakness of the opposing side and turn it into a small victory for you and your idealistic goals.

whats in a lunch

I am sitting here once again eating a mixture of beans, potatos and zucchini wondering, as always, why I didn't order pizza.
The short answer is because eating a whole pizza at luch everyday makes you fat. No, there's no such thing as eating only one or two slices. If you order the pizza you eat the pizza.
In Israel companies give away a free lunch. What about the adage that there is no free lunch? Well before I came to Israel I didn't eat lunch, and I didn't get fat. Now I am eating lunch and paying for it. Except that I stoped eating pizza and I lost a lot of weight. But I would prefer to eat the pizza.

Now I understand smokers who say, I know it'll give me cancer and that doesn't bother me in the least. Give me the cigarette. I also understand why I've never smoked. It's the same reason I'm eating the beans and potatos, which are not even a quarter as enjoyable, instead.

What kind of person trades his life for a moment of pleasure?

Another random thought on the rock of galilee.

are you a fraud?

Do you pretend, at times, and portray yourself as someone you're not because you think that is how the people you are with would like you to be? Is your life lived behind a mask, living your whole life to the expectations of others? Are you two-faced and hypocritical, behaving one way in one setting and a completely opposite way in another?

If the answer is yes, then that's sad.

You have to live with yourself and be ok with yourself because in the end you will die with yourself. Nobody wants it written on their headstone - "Did what he thought was expected of him."

Or do they?

Wouldn't a very similar epitaph be, "Served God to the best of his ability"?

Maybe it is the correct way to live, taking a high goal and pretending that is who you are.

Or maybe it is more correct to take the high goal and strive towards changing yourself so that you reach the peak of existence rather then turning into a miserable vestige of a human being living a life that you are not prepared to lead.

Or maybe not.

I think that at the end of the day, no matter what you do or what you believe or how you act or what you wear, the important thing is to be one with yourself, to be able to look into the mirror and know the person looking back at you.

Random Thought on the rock of galilee.

it's been a long week

I didn't think that Maureen Dowd had it in her. Who would have thought that women want to be sex objects?????? It's a worthwhile read.

It's been a couple weeks since I last had the opportunity to bang on the keyboard here. We moved into our new house, the Friday before Rosh Hashana and things haven't stopped moving since then. Rosh Hashana was very nice, we got invited out for a ll 4 meals. We had a house warming party, about 100 people showed up and we got some very nice gifts (including a bottle of Southern Comfort, my favorite gift). Sukkos was fun. I decided against buying a prefab sukka because I wanted a real wood sukka. But I bought the wrong kind of wood and my attempt at a frame didn't work, so after a couple of near disasters, a friend gave me a good suggestion for handling it and the sukkah was put up. Hopefully over the next number of years I'll be buying better wood as each of my boards slowly break.

In the move, all of our dishes broke (I don't remember if I mentioned that or not), but not to worry we won a new set of dishes in the country auction. As soon as they arrive, we'll be able to have a nice look shabbos table again.

We tiyuled around the north over sukkos, I had taken off all chol hamoed and the day after as well. one day it was raining and we took the kids bowling in Karmiel. My eldest almost beat me, as we were playing with bumpers.

Brother Airtime and Veev were up visiting this week. They don't want to move to Maalot because it is too far away. Too far away from what? Nobody really knows, but we're still happy that they will be relatively close by. Even if they move to Mizpe Netofa to hang out with the the missing Morgantonian, we'll still see them once in a while.

In other news mazel tov to Yonah Klein and the Mondroe girl (I forget her name). They are (hopefully happily) engaged to be married and I wish them and their families our best wishes. Sounds like there are wedding bells in the air.

I noticed someone on Only Simchas who's name was Sa2ra Rov, but what was most interesting is that she spelled her name saara. How weird is that. In our familly we tend to double the letter after the number, not before it.

shana tova

We're in the new house!!!!
Friday night we slept there for the first time, the old lady finally (finally) left and gave us the keys. I hope never to see her again. I took off yesterday to try and help arrange things, and we got a goo amount done. The kids have their bedrooms and the playarea all set up and the kitchen and living room is mostly done. Now I need to set up the computer stuff and clean out the basement and we're good to go.
Starting out the new year in a new house is definitely a good sign.


Speaking of good signs, I saw a sign in shul this morning that you would never see in America.
(Paraphrasing)
The local police requests members of the congregation to bring weapons with them to shul for the high holidays. Doing this will allow you to fulfill the mitzva of "You should guard your souls."


I hope you all have a great rosh hashana, enjoy the apple and honey, and get written in the good book of life.