prohibition on lying

Uncle Moshe has made me mad enough to break the silence and return to
the keyboard. I was preparing for my Pirkei Avos shiur yesterday when I
stumbled on a falsehood that has been perpetuated by Uncle Moshe for
many, many years. We are up to the 9th misha of the first perek, Shimon
ben shetach explains to judges how they should interrogate the witnesses
to determine if they are lying or not.

There are very few commentaries on this mishna, so I brought sources
from Sanhedrin about the process and the story of the 80 witches that he
killed. I got into the Ten Commandments etc.

Then I decided to veer on the subject to the issue of lying in general
and, remembering the Uncle Moshe song, I turned to the verse that says
מדבר שקר תרחק. As the song goes, "מדבר שקר תרחק never tell a lie, Hashem
knows just what happened there's no reason to deny, honesty is אמת make
sure all your words are true so tatti, mommy and Hashem will be so proud
of you." This indicates that the torah source for lying comes from that
pasuk. However, that pasuk is not talking about lying at all. It is an
admonition to judges to be straight in their judgements. The pasuk
before states "don't bias your judgement towards poor people and the one
after says don't take bribery.

It seems that Uncle Moshe is trying to teach children not to lie with a
lie. We can judge him favorably and assume he is ignorant and actually
thinks that that is the source of the prohibition. Until last night I
was also ignorant and assumed that was the source of the prohibition,
but that is only because of his song. The actual prohibition comes from
a pasuk in Lev 19:11, which states "don't steal, deny or lie, a man
among his people."

The talmud brings down a number of cases where it is permitted to lie,
including a famous argument between beis hillel and beis shammai about
whether you should say that a bride is beautiful even if she is not. We
follow the opinion of Beis Hillel which says that after someone buys
something you should compliment it instead of telling him what you
really think. There is no purpose in telling someone after they buy it
that it was an unwise purchase, unless there is actual benefit to the
buyer (and informing him that he has bad taste is not really considered
beneficial.) Since there is a very strict return policy on wives, it is
appropriate to tell the groom that his bride is beautiful even if you
don't really think so.

Here in the Galilee we are getting ready for Pesach. the question of the
year is whether we eat canola oil or not. The rabbi said there is no
clear ruling and I can either eat it or not eat it, my choice. So I'm
taking a poll with all the people who will be eating with us, as to
whether they have a problem with it and if everyone is good with it, we
will start using it this year.

The big pesach tiyul has not been determined yet.

helping converts

Wishing my readers a tzom kal (easy fast).

This week there was a notice in shul that they are looking for families to host not religious/pre-Jewish immigrant soldiers for a traditional shabbos. The Education corps has a learning course in which they teach the fundamentals of traditional (Orthodox) judaism to those who are interested.

A couple of years ago we had over some soldiers who were in the middle of the conversion process and they came to our house a number of times for shabbat. We had lively discussions and they promised to keep in touch after the conversion was complete. Well they didn't. One of them called us once afterward and after that she never even returned my calls and the other one never called and never returned my calls. I think one of them actually had the potential, but I don't know where she is or what she is up to now.

The question is should we do it again? On one hand there is a serious problem with the russian immigrants who are not halachically jewish, but came to Israel after being treated like Jews their entire lives. They get to Israel and are not allowed to get married and are outcasts in a number of ways. Technically the State of Israel should have stricter controls of who comes in and who doesn't, but they are here now and it is our problem.

One on side, we don't want to be converting people who are probably not going to be keeping mitzvos. On the other hand, if they are interested in being part of the Jewish nation and they are willing to learn what is required, I don't know if it is my issue if at the end of their conversion they decide to join the secular majority of the Jewish people. That is, as long as I do my part and do my best to show them what traditional Judaism has to offer and to convince them that it is their best interest to keep the mitzvos.

camping at the dead sea

We just came back from a multi-day chanukah excursion. Monday night we camped at the Ein gedi beach by the dead sea. It was supposed to be bitter cold, but the weather turned out to be very nice. So we had a bbq and a small bonfire and everyone had a great time.

We went to ein bokek monday morning on the trail and there was a lot of water. The weather was perfect, but not really for a swim. As I watched my children I saw a lot of differences in thought patterns (or lack thereof). It was chilly out so none of the adults went into the water, aside from our feet as we walked through it. Some of the kids went into the pool and had a great time. When they came out they were freezing. We didn't bring a change of clothes because we didn't think it was possible that they would go into the water.

In any case, what I noticed is:
Child - Sees water wants to go in, goes in and has a great time. Comes out. It is cold. complains bitterly until something else catches his attention.

Adult - Sees water and doesn't even consider going in because it will be cold when he comes out.

The child obviously had more fun because he did not use any foresight. The question is does his discomfort after playing in the water offset the fun he had?

We will never know the answer.

erev yom kippur

This has been a crazy busy week between rosh hashan and yom kippur, I did two selichos tours, one in Tsfat with the boys(actually 2, one with each class) and then to Jerusalem the next evening with the girls. We also built our sukkah, which we got from our friends who bought a new paper sukkah.

Hopefully I will get to writing those experiences, but now I will talk about today. Today started at 4:30AM. That's not as early as it sounds because we changed our clocks last night, so it only felt like 5:30AM. I've been getting up at 5:30 anyways for the past 2 weeks for selichos. Last night I had decided that I was going to go down to the nachal (stream) for an early dip in the mikvah (ritual bath). My plan was to daven (pray) at 6 and then go down afterwards, but I told my wife that if I happen to wake up at 4 then I would go then.
When I opened I eyes and saw that it was 4:30 I decided that it was a good time, and I was parked dopwn by the nachal by 4:45. It was very dark, but there was enough moon and starlight to see the path. The hue on top of the mountains was a deep purple and everything looked dark and menacing. I was thinking on the way down that I should have brought a knife with me in case any animals threatened me. After a couple seconds I realized that the only animal that might threaten me are wild pigs, and a knife won't help against them. Afterward, I realized that the jackals might also attack if they are in a bunch, but I didn't think about it then and I didn't have a knife anyways so it didn't matter.

I walked along the dark path for about half an hour until I got to the springs and the big pool. The only sounds I heard were my own sandals and animals crashing through the brush when i disturbed them. The only animals I actually saw were a jackal, an interesting looking animal that was bigger then a squirrel, maybe a weasel, ferret or really large rat, and some fish. There are some Persian fallow deer in the area, but I haven't see any.

I got to the springs at 5:10AM and it was getting much lighter. The water was perfectly clear and I saw some fish swimming about. I was in a bit of a rush because I had to get back to davening at 6, so I quickly jumped in and dunked 7 times and got out. It was so peaceful, with nobody else around. When I started walking back, I noticed that that the leaves on the trees had changed from dark black to light green and I could see the holy raspberries on the bushes.

About half way back I noticed a tent set up in a clearing with a small family cooking breakfast. It's surprising that I didn't see the tent on the way in, but it was dark.

I made it to shul before 6 and got home by 7.

After breakfast, I took the boys to buy our lulavim and esrogim, here you pay the same price as back home, the only difference being the currency.

I wish you all a g'mar chasima tova, an easy fast and a happy, healthy sweet new year.

sefer torah fundraiser problem

UPDATE:
See bottom for update

Disclaimer: I have not consulted with any rabbinic people about my issue, so don't take this the wrong way.

I recently received a fund-raising request from my yeshiva high school alumni association. They are writing a sefer torah and dedicating it to the rabbeim. It is being marketed as a way to give back to the school and show appreciation for the hard work and dedication that they had put into your education and life. As it is a dormitory school, the rabbis are a very big part of your life and teenage-hood.

After I got the first mail from the alumni association, I got another email from a former classmate asking me to participate in buying a parsha with our class.

I really liked my high school and I liked the rabbis, not all of them obviously, but I got along well enough with most of them, which is not something most of my contemporaries from other high schools can say. I am still in contact with the high school and see one of the rabbis once a year, generally. I have donated in the past and I will continue to donate in the future, may God continue sending me parnasa.

I have a small problem with this particular fund-raiser though. I haven't ruled out participating in my class parsha, and I most probably will participate.

Here's my problem -
They are selling:
Entire Torah: Already Sold
Individual parshas: a bunch of them already sold
Special parshas within the individual parshas: A bunch already sold
Pasukim

If someone already bought the entire Torah, then he gets credit for writing a sefer Torah. The guy who donates a parsha is really not donating a parsha, because the guy who bought the entire torah already got that parsha. The guy who buys a special parsha or a pasuk is not really donating them either.

In other words, if someone buys a pasuk in a special parsha, that pasuk has already been sold to 3 other people, The Torah donor, the parsha donor, the special parsha donor and finally to the pasuk donor. I would think (and I could be wrong) that all of the donors aside from the original Torah donor are going to get credit for giving tzedaka, but not for writing a Torah.

I would like to hear from my readers what they think of this situation. As I mentioned above, I have not consulted with any rabbis about my issue with this yet and it is very possible that I am wrong and that everyone involved does get Torah writing points and not just regular tzedaka points (which are nothing to sneeze at).

UPDATE
I got a response from the yeshiva and I'm happy to tell you that my issue was unfounded. The head of the alumni association sent are sponsa to the exact same question from R' Zalman Nechemia Goldberg. The question asked went much farther then the question I asked and included the question, do you need to make a kinyan on the letter in the sefer somehow. The question indicated that most of the time when you purchase a letter in a sefer torah you do not make a kinyan on it. However, I have seen where the person sponsoring a letter has given the pen to the sofer and made him a shaliach in the writing. They also asked if someone who is not allowed to write a torah donates, does that pasul the entire torah.

If anyone wants to read the responsa themselves, please let me know and I'll forward it over (in Hebrew).
The answer is that when someone buys a parsha, they are not in actuality buying a parsha. The parsha is dedicated to them. However the way that it technically works is that you take all the money collected for the sefer torah project and combine it into one pot. If one person spends $1000 and another person spends $200 then the person with the $200 donation gets 1/5 of the amount of Torah writing credit then the $1000 donor. So if you want to know how much sefer torah writing credit you actually get, you add up the sum total of donations and divide the amount of your donation by it and that percentage is what you take with you as torah writing credit and the rest of the donation goes with you as tzedaka and harbatzas torah credit.

A groiseh yasher koach to the hanhala of the yeshiva, I recommend all of my readers donate to a sefer torah project.

shana tova

I want to wish all my readers a שנה טובה ומתוקה, a sweet and good new year. May this year be a year of health, wealth and happiness for all of us.

I have been very busy this entire year, with very little time to blog, as I'm sure you've noticed. God willing this coming year will be just as busy, if not more so.

selichos

It looks like I missed the JBloggers conference in jlem this year. I've
been pretty lax in my blogging recently and I hardly read anybody so I
didn't feel the pull to connect with my fellow bloggers. Maybe next year.

Normally I leave my house at 6 AM to beat traffic into Haifa, so I daven
when I get there. The shul on the Technion campus is mostly a sefardic
institution and they have been saying selichos for the entire month of
elul. Now that it is a week before rosh hashana, ashkenazim have started
saying selichos as well. After some inner debate I decided that it was
worthwhile leaving at 5:30 AM to get to selichos on time and I will hope
I don't get punished too horribly for saying sefardic selichos instead
of the regular ones.

I got to the shul 2 minutes late and someone was at the door saying
ashkenazim that way. They had a seperate minyan for ashkenazic selichos.
I had been worried about the singing and chanting, but this way there
were no worries. It was the familiar hum of reading the words as fast
you can possibly get them out, reading out loud together the key phrase
over and over with a single pizman other then the daily שמע קולנו. I
don't know if God forgave us because of the stuff we read, I'm not even
sure that anyone who was there knew what he was reading. But he
certainly forgave us because we showed we cared by getting up extra
early to ask.

school politics

I'm on the school parent board again this year (like a PTA). I
considered leaving the board and making room for someone new. In fact, I
tried. I volunteered to be one of the class parents, we have 4 this
year. One of the class parents is supposed to be elected to represent
the class on the school board. I actually insisted on a correct process
this year where 3 people are voted as class parents and only one
represents the class on the school board. Last year, I was the only
volunteer and we had to convince 2 others to raise their hands. This
year 3 other people instantly put up their hands. Nobody had a problem
with 4 class parents. At the end of the meeting I asked the other 3 if
anyone wanted to represent the class and one woman said that her husband
really wanted to. I thought this would be a great way out of it. It is
so hard getting anything across and the culture is so different here
that I thought, "I tried for a couple years, and they'll be relieved
when I tell them that I'm not returning."

So I went down to the final meeting where we were talking about whether
to strike the system because a teacher wasn't given all the hours we
wanted and told them that 6th grade will be represented by another
parent. I was informed by the principal and a few other parents that
that is ridiculous and 6th grade can be represented by more then 1
parent. I explained to them that we had already agreed to 1 parent per
class and they rejected that with the explanation that at the beginning
of the year a bunch of parents join and then leave, so most probably the
other guy wouldn't stick it out.

At the meeting, most of the other parents actually agreed with me
(surprise) that we could not threaten to strike the system when the
school has more hours then it is supposed to and we only want 5 more,
which we can pick up from other classes here and there.

Last week I met with the principal and we worked out some of our
misunderstandings, so all is good.

Lost and Found

On July 16 2005, I wrote a blog post about going to Morgenfeld's
restaurant on Moshav Liman. The restaurant has since moved to across
from Akhziv and the food is excellent, we were there 2 nights ago with
settler friends from the West Bank.

Laurie commented that she was looking for a friend, Amir Tlumak who used
to live in moshav Liman. I don't know either Laurie or Amir, but
yesterday, more then 2 years later, Amir commented on that blog post
that he is still in Israel and hasn't seen Laurie in 27 years.

Amir did not leave an email address or phone number, and Laurie did not
leave any contact information either.

If Laurie is still reading and Amir still wants to be found or if anyone
knows Laurie or Amir, please let me know if they find each other. I'm
very curious.

sefardi selichos rap

I go to a sefardic shul for morning prayers every morning and now during the month of elul they have started saying selichos. Ashkenazim only have to say 1 week of selichos because as a general rule we have less to be forgiven for.
Sefardim don't just say selichos, though, they chant them. And sometimes they slaughter a goat in the middle.
The way it works is different people randomly start leading the chant at different places, so one guy might start chanting out loud and everyone will start answering and then in the middle a different guy will start his own chant.
Today someone started rapping instead of chanting. I think he was going for a new selichos feel. But he actually rapped shomer yisrael. It was very moving. Then he started to breakdance and that's when the rabbi asked him to leave. He felt that it was inappropriate to rap and breakdance the selichos as it is supposed to be a chanting with minor in-sync swaying.

tzfat klezmerfest

While I'm already blogging...

The klezmer festival is back in tzfat (or safed if you write it like
that). The hebrew site can be found at http://www.klezmerf.com/ and
there is also a English site at
http://safed-home.com/KlezmerFestival.html The English schedule is at
http://safed-home.com/2009KlezmerFestivalSchedule.html one of the links
on the site doesn't work.

The festival starts today, Aug 10 and goes until Wednesday. We've gone
for the past couple years and have really enjoyed ourselves. I highly
recommend Simply Tzfat who is playing tonight at 11PM. We won't be there
as it is way too late for the kids, but it is definitely worth seeing.

If you just roam the streets you'll find a mad fiddler or too and that
totally make the evening.

Enjoy the music.

50 shek for a blogging convention???

I just received my invitation to the 2nd annual Jewish bloggers
convention. It will be held somewhere in Jerusalem on Sep 13, 2009. The
exact location is not being released due to security concerns.

I enjoyed the 1st blogging convention. I didn't learn anything listening
to the panelists, but it was a lot of fun meeting the other bloggers,
some of whom I read and others who I had never heard of. When I first
suggested this blogging convention to Jameel 5 years ago, I told him
that people would happily pay to go to a blogging convention and he told
me I'm out of my mind.

I'm not so sure that I'm going to go this year. Maybe it's the 50 shekel
cover charge. Maybe it's because I'm not seen as often on the blogging
scene anymore. Maybe it's because I don't have any freaking time.

In defense of the cover charge, last year's dinner was easily worth 50
shek. If you have a couple of piled high deli sandwiches and some
drinks, you could easily surpass the cover charge. I would doubt this is
for profit, and even if it was I'm pro-free market.

But at the moment I'm not registering. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

sys admin in haifa

I'm looking for a sys admin in Haifa with good Linux experience. If
you're interested shoot me a note.

apples from the US

Today, at work, I noticed that the Granny Smith apples had a tag that
said Product of the USA, Washington Apples. I asked the woman who is in
charge of food why we are buying our apples from the US. We have plenty
of apples grown in the country. She replied that we buy from the
supermarket, whatever they have. But it is probably because of shmita,
then she and another woman (both of them secular) started arguing about
exactly when shmita ended and if that was a valid reason.

A couple weeks ago we visited the Breishit fruit packing plant in the
Golan. The apple picking is starting in another 2 weeks, so there are no
fresh apples from Israel yet, last years crop was indeed a shmitta crop,
so unless we are eating heter mechira (and it is odd that the
supermarket we buy from wouldn't) we have to eat apples from chool (out
of the country).

Speaking of the harvest, I saw a bunch of random people in one of
kibbutz yagur's fields picking tomatoes. A guy I was giving a ride to
told me that the machine already finished the harvest, and these people
are doing leket. Leket is one of the commandments of a field. After the
harvest, anyone can come to the field and pick up what is left. It is
one of the 3 commandments relating to poor people picking other people's
crops, giving them something to eat. The other 2 commandments are שכחה
and פאה. I have not seen a corner of any field marked off as being for
poor people to harvest, but I imagine that if a buncle is left in the
field, someone will come and take it.

According to <a
href="http://www.ynet.co.il/yaan/0,7340,L-15229-MTUyMjlfODA3MzA4NDZfMTQ4Njg3MjAw-FreeYaan,00.html">ynet's
encyclopedia</a> these mitzvos are only done when most of the Jewish
people live in Israel. Until then this is a Rabbinical commandment, and
I'm happy to see it is being fulfilled.

Finally on the topic of harvest, we went to the Golan last week to a
U-Pick in Moshav Sha'al and had a great time picking sour cherries,
raspberries, blackberries, mulberries, little plums and some other
assorted berries. It is 23 shekel entry fee for all you can eat and then
20 shek a kilo for what you take home. Highly recommended.

mad reviews

These are unpaid ads.

First off I want to give mad reviews to the good doctors at EyeTravel, who travel around MI providing eyecare for the homebound. Eyetravel doctors go to people who can't get out, their primary enjoyment in life is watching tv or reading. Unfortunately as they get older and their health deteriorates, their eyesight is not as sharp as it once was. EyeTravel doctors give these people back their life as they come prepared with miniature medical equipment right into the house and restore their eyesight so they can continue to enjoy tv, reading and whatever else they need to see. As a number of their patients say to them when they are done, "God Bless You."

Back in Israel - Mad Reviews to the new burger place in Meona. Your choice of 160, 220 or 320 gram burgers (160 grams is ~1/4 lb). A 160 gram burger is 25 shek (about $6.50) and comes with an order of fries (cajun spicy, or regular). The burger and the fries were both excellent. It takes a bit of time to prepare the burger, but the taste is what counts.

Mad Reviews to me, I made chicken for the first time and it was edible. I actually didn't do much more then put my special wing sauce on already cut pieces of chicken and put in in the oven, but it worked. I also learned that if you have potatoes on the bottom of the chicken pot and you want them to be in oil so that they can fry while the stuff on top is cooking in the sauce, it doesn't work, because oil always floats even if you try to get it to stay on the bottom.

the economic thing

This topic has been touched upon for several years. Everyone knows close ones who either work in the center of the country, or even in the regional center of the North, realizing that local jobs go less far in covering personal skill sets, or failing that, basic family monthly expenditures - if, that is, you can find one.

The graph image appeared in the "Israeli" July 25, 2006 on page 12 with no documentation.

In general. there has been a scarcity of useful documented local economic information and indicators or ideas relevant for initiatives in the so-called peripheries. But I am convinced this is an inhouse matter and among those of us who are concerned, there is sufficient talent and intelligence to suggest strategy over a barbeque, maybe.

I would like to share some sources that may flesh out thinking about these ideas. The first three touch on or relate to the North; the fourth relates to similar problems in the UK but which provide food for thought. Maybe you, the reader, do not need these. Anyway, they are not required reading, just represent my 2 cents worth. Check out the zip file and other links, if interested.

http://www.i-biz.co.il/innovation.asp
http://israel.planetfinancegroup.org/EN/download.php
http://www.tzafona.org.il/tzafona/open.aspx

http://www.ideopolis.info/publications.htm

The bottom line is that our specific catchment area and population - even total population - is only a very small part of even the North of the country meaning we can expect to receive only token attention from central government planning committees even after, nevermind . I personally find this lack of attention to inhibit my own sense of confidence, but that's a good reason I am me and you are you.

If you who happen to be reading this would like to invest in charcoal or other components or expenses or aims of this venture, please let us know.

pesach tiyul

I know this is a bit late to be writing about our Pesach tiyulim, but I know everyone has been waiting for them. I just handed in a new support application that I've been working on for a couple months and I actually have a couple minutes to breathe.

Sunday morning, Chol Hamoed, we met my brother and his family near Yokneam to nachal Hashofet. My brother-in-law and family and littlest sister were with us for shabbos and they came with us too. I downloaded the directions from the Internet, and we found the park and a nice place to have a picnic lunch. We did deli sandwiches and they did some kind of cheesy somethings. Of course, there was also chocolate spread for the matzas.

After lunch we tried to figure out which way the nachal was, but the signs were all very confusing and the Internet directions did not help very much. There were a number of other cars trying to figure out where it was as well and so we guessed and continued upwards. We continued driving and the signs were not very clear and we finally got to a place where a number of cars were parked. We stopped there and asked someone if they knew where we were in relation to the map. They guessed that we were on the map and must be somewhere in the middle of the trail we were looking for.

We decided to start from that point and hope to find the red trail to get us to the water springs. We started walking through the cornfields, there were signs that said that we should not enter the cornfields, but the children didn't think that applied to them and they walked part of the time through the corn. It was similar to the movies, where you the corn is higher then the people walking, so we couldn't see them, but fortunately no one got lost.

At some point my BIL turned around and left because it was too much for his kids (they're much younger). And we continued onwards. After about an hour, we found the springs and had a great time playing in them. There were tons of people there, and it was good to have had a nice long hike before getting to the water. I've found that water after a strenuous hike is much better then water that you park next to, but that is debatable. My little sister fell into the water a number of times and she blamed me, in part, for her inability to stay on her feet.

After we finished playing in the water, we continued on the circular trail till we exited into the parking lot. The problem was that we didn't know where we were in relation to the trail to take us back to our car. It took us some time and the kids all got popsicles, but we found our way back to the trail and after a good hike back, we found our car.

We returned to our village for a nice BBQ. One of my little brothers came up with his family from Sunday eve through the last day. We did kabobs, not israeli hamburgers, meat and vegetables on a stick (They say that if there is both meat and vegetables on the stick, then your grill has not been disgraced as it would be if there was only vegetables), hot dogs and hamburgers. We decided that kabobs are bad to cook, because the meat and vegetables don't get ready at the same time and also the meat doesn't all get ready at the same time because there are different levels of heat on the grill. In any case, the food was all et and a good time was had by all.

$300 million dollar mistake

Surprisingly enough, traintalk did not send me this article, which details how small things in e-commerce can make such a huge difference.
A huge retailer took away their forced customer registration on their website and they realized $300 million dollars more in sales.

The first thing I did after reading that was to send a message to my web developers that registration should happen automatically, and it should send a password by email so the user can check their account status.

atzmaut tiyul

Yom Haatzmaut we planned a nice tiyul in the morning. Our family BBQ was at 3:00 PM, which gave us plenty of opportunity to enjoy the day. David Bellin, a friend and tour guide operator, recommended that we hike Nachal Katlav. The nachal is between Bet Shemesh and Jlem (through the back) and was perfect for our hike. We ate lunch at a precarious angle half way down the mountain. It was rocky, and rough and slightly strenuous. There was nana growing there and we found a couple almond trees as well. My eldest picked some wild beans and told me to eat them, slightly spicy and good.

The hike took us approximately 3 hours. We parked a car at the end, so we would not have to climb all the way back up. I heard the climb up is the fun part, but we passed on it this time. We got to the bbq on time and had a great time eating and playing around. There was very little traffic all the way home and we arrived before 10PM.

Special Prayer Session

One of the most contested things about Israeli Independence day among various religious sects is whether to say hallel and if so, with a bracha or without. Before moving to Israel, I had never celebrated Israeli Independence Day (though as I'm writing this, I seem to recall a BBQ at my parents house once). After I got here I joined a religious zionist community and started celebrating the independence. I have been going to special prayers every year since I got here, though I still haven't said hallel with a bracha. It's a lot more then just hallel, they add in a whole bunch of stuff including blowing the shofar at night and reading a haftorah (without a bracha) during the day.

This year after the bris, we had thought we were going to hang out with my aunt and uncle who are here (for the first time) on a mission. We couldn't get ahold of them right away so we decided to go to the kotel for a little bit. They called as we were driving to their hotel and told us that the group was doing something that evening, so they wouldn't be able to get together with us until the next day for the family BBQ. We realized after we hung up that their hotel was across the street from the parking lot, so we stopped in the hotel anyways and visited for a bit. We continued on our way to the wall and the kids were all complaining that they were starving hungry (apparantly they forgot you are supposed to eat at a bris) so we stopped for pizza (70 shekel a pie in the old city, איזה מכה.

We then realized that we would be right on time for special prayers at the wall, so we hurried on down. They were just finishing up the speeches and we watched as they raised the flag to full mast and put out the big memorial flame that had been burning next to the Wall throughout Memorial Day. We then proceeded to do special prayers. Special Prayers (which includes the normal evening service) was very, very long. The first part was read repetitively half of a pasuk by the chazzan and the other half by the people, sometime. They were chanting sefardically as well (though nobody slaughtered a goat) and tried to throw in the tune of Hatikva as many times as they could during the reading/chanting. Hallel took way too long. Did you know that you could do the entire hatikva tune for each הודו לה' כי טוב. I hadn't know it was possible.

We decided to leave immediately afterwards and did not stay for the dancing.

We got to my brother's in Modiin (where we were staying) around 11:00 PM and then we started the grill up. My brother made a rub for the grilled chicken that was a bit strong, it was based on spicy paprika. It was a good way to end the evening.