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And oh, yes, I nearly forgot one of the best writers of all time (Jewish, surprisingly enough— I’m not a big Jewish lit person): HAIM SABATO.
If you have never read one of his books, please do yourself a favor, go to Amazon.com, and buy The Dawning of the Day. You will not regret it.
There are no evil neo-Nazis or Muslim terroists out to destroy the world, there’s no shidduch in jeopardy, there’s no marriage in jeopardy; in short, this is not a typical Jewish book. (Sorry, I just had to say that.)
It’s just the story of the tzaddikim of old Yerushalayim, tzaddikim in the story without being sappy or predictable. It’s the story of a pure and simple man, a professor of piyutim, a somewhat bombastic yungerman, and a blind fiddler, with the shadow of the great writer following them in their lives.
Sabato has other fantastic books, like Aleppo Tales, Adjusting Sights, and From The Four Winds, but I recommend that you read this one first to get a feeling for the flavor of his works and of the Jerusalem of old.
MICHAEL CRICHTON!!!
My dad introduced me to those and they are awesome!
I’ve only read Jurassic Park and Sphere so far, and they are both fantastic pieces of writing— really smooth, like you can just keep reading and reading and all of a sudden, three hours have gone by. (Though Sphere did creep me out of my mind.)
The problem is, they are literally 99% appropriate. LITERALLY. You basically need a permanent marker to black out maybe five (if that many, seriously) words in each book, and after that, LET YOUR KIDS READ THEM. Then read them yourself. They are incredible.
Csar is redundant and repetitive.
And I don’t know anything about that story, but WHY would people not celebrate upon the Jews’ being able to go to the Kotel, upon a war which could have caused thousands of deaths being averted, and upon the reunification of Yerushalayim? It wasn’t the Jews who started the war— this is probably the best-case scenario. I would say it was definitely a neis, seeing as I think there are a lot of nissim which happen which we don’t acknowledge.
nisht, the internet is ALSO a personal thing. People just don’t seem to realize that. It’s much more personal than tuition (though I don’t know how an asifa could help with that, unless it’s a principal’s asifa), loving every Jew, and abuse, to say the least. You can make a million and one takanos and you still can’t stop someone from doing what he wants with his internet. An asifa can raise awareness, just like it can in any of elik’s categories, but it can’t really change very much.
While I don’t fully agree with lakewhut, I believe that a lot of people are missing the boat— before you can ban or filter, you need to teach about SAFE INTERNET USE.
There was a lecture by R Zecharya Wallerstein going around, and it talked about a really horrible thing that happened to a girl because of someone she met on the internet. I cannot even come close to understanding the tzara that this family is going through, but the thing that irked me was that R Wallerstein kept saying, as a persistent refrain, “Get off the internet.” Why did that irk me? Because that wasn’t the moral of the story.
I will not be going into the story, but even from what I’ve said already, the moral is clearly DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS! Whether on the internet or in real life! Whether male or female (because there is a potential, possibly slight but still there, that they are not the one they say they are)! So what does it mean, that if someone can get kidnapped off a bus we shouldn’t ride buses?
We need to educate teens (and, quite frankly, adults, if only that they can stay alert to the dangers) about using the internet RESPONSIBLY.
1) Only “friend” people you know (call them to confirm that they “friended” you)
2) Do you really need social networking? I’ve always wondered why people do.
3) Don’t talk to strangers! Don’t tell them your name! Don’t give them your email address! Just DON’T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL!!!
4) Memorize #3
Honestly, if you ask any kid, they will know that they’re not allowed to talk to strangers, take candy from strangers, etc. But do they understand not to talk to strangers online? That is really what we need to make sure, even before we talk about filters and stuff like that, because it’s just sechel, and because there will always be kids who will break the filters. They need to be educated and KNOW about the dangers, or you’re just leaving them, not knowing how to swim, in the middle of an ocean filled with man-eating crocodiles.
BTW it was the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbor (though it does feel stupid to be making a 2 year old correction).
A man is late for an important business meeting, and he’s right outside the office building, circling the block, on the lookout for a parking spot. There are none to be found, even on the next blocks over. Driven by desperation, he screams out, “God in Heaven! If You help me find a spot I’ll learn for three hours extra a day! I’ll take every single chumra ever dreamed of upon myself! I’ll—“
As he is enumerating his promises, a car pulls out of a spot, right in front of the door to the man’s building.
The man sees the spot, parks, then looks up again and shouts, “Forget it, God— I found one!”
(There’s a really cute YouTube video about that— it’s in Hebrew, but it’s pretty funny.)
I know someone who is a Russian baalas teshuva, in her twenties, who became a baalas teshuva when she was eighteen. She decided that she wanted to marry another Russian baal teshuva, because of similar backgrounds, and live in either Russia in a kiruv community or in Israel. She has now been married for three years to an FFB sefardi and they live in Brooklyn.
Apart from bringing it up to them non-confrontationally, all you can really do is move or buy a ventilation system.
A lot depends on your relationship with these neighbors.
Do they realize that the smoke is also getting to their kids even if they only smoke outside? It isn’t stopping the smoke, and they are seriously endangering their kids (not to mention you).
BTW: If you want someplace nice just to hang out, I love Lincoln Center. It’s got a nice plaza, and this really cool big chunk of lawn that’s hanging in midair, and it’s only a few blocks from Central Park and the zoo.
I revel in my last presidential election in which I can kick back, relax and not need to think of for whom to vote.
Blame the grownups!
Ummm…. nice and relevant topic! And not at all personal— no, definitely not personal!
I just recently accidentally texted my teacher “What’s for dinner” because Mom is right above Mrs. A
in my contacts.Quite mortifying.
OOTY: Yes, shadchanim will be (and could be right now, I have no idea) invited.
Unfortunately, that’s about all I know about it, not being overly nosy. (YEAH RIGHT. Me not nosy. Ha ha ha. I actually just want to keep on my mom’s good side by not sticking my nose in her confidential business.)
I think the point is that shadchanim will now have a wider pool of people to suggest.
“Lt. Berenbaum was drafted and had no choice
I think they called him Mike.”
Wrong book.
derszoger: Yes, many Jews fought on both sides in WWI and were proud of it. The Nazi government and the Kaiser’s government were not the same thing. (An awesome novel about it is From The Four Winds by Haim Sabato.)
I would not have been drafted, but considering that my great-grandfather was shot to death by the Nazis in 1939, if I had heard of it in 1941 (or 42 or whatever) I would have been on the next boat out to fight.
AZ: Maybe, but if you think that that’s all it is, then you’re just fooling yourself.
Forget about sloppiness, what about the dry cleaning bill?
(Especially after the jacket falls off the shoulders, onto the sidewalk and is run over by a baby carriage.)
“There was a protest in Washington DC on the national lawn for Israel in 2003 I think, Over 300,000 jews (mostly MO) attended, While you could claim the Salute to Israel parade is free, It cost money and time to get to Washington DC. (More than $10 and more than 4 hours of your time)”
Hey, my uncle and cousins went to that one, and they’re not MO.
At least, I don’t think they are. Seeing as I’m utterly perplexed as to the meaning of chareidi and MO and dati leumi and Zionist and stuff like that, I don’t know what they are. I don’t even know what I am, and quite frankly, I don’t care.
Please don’t define those terms for me. I don’t think we need all those labels.
Abe was nice in the seventh book.
I don’t think he was a molester. I don’t think JK Rowling would have made him a good guy if so.
Writing is in my soul.
I like the eizena kup one!
Mods, just out of curiosity, what would mine be? Don’t necessarily put it up, but I’m just curious.
Mine is a livyasan.
THEY ARE NOT SOLD OUT. They may end up sold out soon, but not yet.
Think of it as wholesale (the asifa committee) selling to the retailers (shuls and schools). The wholesalers can say they’re sold out but many of those tickets were not yet actually sold,
I dunno, if they were sold out, they probably would no longer be selling them at my brother’s school and my shul.
Syag: You’re right(which I thought was what I said) and it allows people the chance to disagree in the first place, in an environment where they can open their mouths (or press their keys) without people seeing their kippot of tichlech or whatever, and where they can also keep an ear out for the bus or their oven timer :).
I just took my AP Euro exam, and apparently in the 1400s were some German wars called, wait for it, the Schmalkadic Wars! I don’t know why, but I found that so hilarious (maybe because nothing else in European history is funny at all…..).
Syag Lchochma: This is because of looks or because maybe some of us will be wearing kippot srugot or streimlach or denim skirts or turbans or whatever it is that’s different from what you’re wearing?
That’s a good thing about the internet, then—- anonymity, so we’re not beating each other up when someone different from us is stating their opinion.
Naysberg: The fact that they are sold out only means that they sold all those tickets for yeshivos and shuls to resell. I doubt that they have all 40,000 tickets sold to individuals by now.
In the general scheme of things, also, 40,000 is NOT that many people.
Loyal Jew: Is that how you think of your wife? Like a washing machine? With a cooking machine feature on the side?
[No, I don’t really think you do. But you were just asking for it with that comment :)]
If washing machines had personalities and goals and dreams and individuality beyond being EnergyStar-rated and expensive or cheap and stacking or being side-by-side with the dryer, then okay, maybe. But you know that there’s only so much you can check out about someone to predict what an actual, non-washing machine girl will be like.
If someone checked me out and called my parents and teachers and friends etc etc, they wouldn’t come out with the foggiest flipping CLUE of what I’m like.
I will agree with that statement only once someone defines, once and for all, the definition of the word Chareidi.
I believe they are starting such a database as 42 described, in the way he mentions it— available by invitation only. It’s still in the beta stages, though.
akuperma- Totally not true. It has been done.
And based on that, what would be the difference between a get and a baal teshuva?
Networking works! That’s how my parents met. You know someone who knows someone who knows someone….. Especially through smallish shidduch meetings. My mom organizes them and through them many shidduchim (including two or three cousins’) have been made.
Personally, I feel that I know many women who are rebbetzins, even if their husbands never received semicha.
Unless you’ve got another title, I’ll stick with that.
Isha chashuva, maybe?
AWESOME!!!!
🙂
Feif Un, does that apply to older sisters? 🙂
akuperma, ani maskimah me’ah achuz!
OOM: Is that a Hermione thing? Because the shortness and brown bushy hair are actually right….
Creepy.
Sorry, gotta go feed Crookshanks and read a thousand-page book on electricity :).
Ask your LOR. I know someone who had a bar mitzvah on the night of Lag Baomer who received a psak from a respected posek that he could have live music. Don’t judge by other scenarios, because they may have other factors.
Personally, I know my shul always has its hilula on the night after Lag Baomer (34th day).
I was always somewhat partial to Hermione (I raise my hand in class too much), but when I saw how she looks in the movies, I was like, she’s too pretty! She’s supposed to be a nerd! (okay, okay, so there are pretty nerds, but still….) I think I kinda superimposed myself on her :).
Actually, on second thought, can you guys tell me how you see me? Leaving out my posts on any Jewish Press article-related threads, please. Just based on my general posts.
I was going to volunteer to be a writing counselor or something, but it seems as though haifagirl is doing that.
I can write the camp newsletter! (I’m actually going to be doing that this summer in my camp.)
🙂
There are two separate issues, the iPhone and the pajamas. Either way, it would probably be a bracha levatalah.
The iPhone might be a sensitivity (and that’s your opinion) but it absolutely doesn’t make your davening on a lower level.
The pajamas, if you’re a girl and they have pants, may be an issue. Otherwise, I think you just need to be wearing something, though it’s probably much better not to wear pajamas.
When my mom and dad were dating, my mom wasn’t living at home (she was already in her late twenties) and she had the shadchan calling her most of the time instead of her mom. So one neighborhood lady didn’t know that, so she called my grandmother to set my dad up with my mom. However, at the same time, my mom had agreed to go out with someone else ON THE SAME NIGHT! My mom and grandmother each only knew about one (my grandmother was going to tell my mom the day before, like they usually did, and my mom was going to tell my grandmother afterward).
Then the other guy, the one my mom agreed to go out with, had someone bump into his car in Brooklyn or someplace, and by the time he got a chance to call my mom to apologize for missing the date, she had already gone out with my dad (after a bit of confusion and a looong explanation from my grandmother) and had agreed to go out again. Sooooo… as they say, it was bashert!
Speaking of which, my dad got redt to my mom in the first place after my aunt (who had just moved to the area where my mom lived) was at a kiddush and was chatting with some neighbor. The neighbor mentioned “Do you know of anyone for my friend’s daughter, blah blah blah…” and my aunt mentioned “Oh, I have a single brother, blah blah blah….” and the rest, as they say, was history.
Never underestimate the power of shidduch networking!
Oh scratch that— I just remembered another “rebbetzin” I’ve got this year. So make that three on three.
Then again, she’s the type of teacher worth forgetting….
That reminds me of the old prank call where you call a random person and say “Baskin Robbins, 31 flavors, 31 seconds, $31,000, GO!”
Then again, my friend once called someone and started off, “Baskin Robbins, 39 flavors, 39 seconds…” and the person at the other end said “Nice try” and hung up.
Oh well.
OOM: In my school, teachers are NOT automatically called rebbetzin, even if their husbands are rabbis, which is kinda nice. I have 5 female Limudei Kodesh teachers and two are rebbetzins— one is school-mandated (besides for her husband actually being a rabbi) and the other one’s husband is a rabbi also but either way she just IS a rebbetzin. You know what I mean?
Ohhhh, I wanna go parasailing…..
And I wanna go white-water rafting with rapids ABOVE a 2-3. I went in the summer but the rapids were minuscule. We weren’t able to go on the good ones because my brother’s too young.
You SAID random thoughts, didn’t you?
LOL… this brings back some really weird memories which I wil not bring up as I’ve got friends on the CR who do not know who I am and I’d like it to stay that way :).
Personally, I think a rebbetzin is what you choose to become. If you’re the “rebbetzin type” and you do “rebbetzin stuff”—eg: helping people, being an awesome person, etc— then you can be a rebbetzin no matter who you’re married to and whether or not you’re married at all.
My aunt is a “rebbetzin bas rebbetzin” and she said that when my uncle first got his position in his shul, they were still “Rabbi and Mrs.” and now she’s grown to become “Rabbi and Rebbetzin” because it doesn’t come automatically.
I’m not going to either one.
But if I had to choose I would pick the Siyum HaShas. My male disguise clothes are in the wash.
Is the shmurah matzah cheaper a month later?
Where on earth do you find raw horseradish now?