This past Friday night, a local man saved his own life by restarting his heart during a traditional Jewish prayer service. The incident happened at a local Young Israel when a man was saying the Shabbat evening prayer and by accidentally started off with the weekday service rather than the Shabbat service, he reached the point at which you hit your chest for repentance from your sins, at which point he realized he was saying the wrong thing and changed, he had no idea this move would save his life. [click to continue…]
I was sitting in Adath Israel in San Francisco this past shabbos afternoon in their weekday shul and it came to me that they had the best benches I have ever sat on, it then came to me that I have visited many shuls, and that I could come up with a best of list. Maybe I could figure out which shul has the best kiddush, worst mechitza and most unfriendly vibes, so based on my visitations here is my Shul Awards. [click to continue…]
The whole concept of being off the derech bothers me because in my opinion there is no right derech, if we call those who aren’t observant or don’t follow the ways that they were brought up in we feel the need to belittle them. Oh he or she is off the derech sounds really crappy and I decided to put in my two cents on this situation. [click to continue…]
A woman was eating at her local orthodox Rabbis house this past week when the rabbi announced that they were going to sing a niggun because his shvigger liked when the boys sang at the meal. She stood up at the middle of the meal and demanded to know what he had just called her – he had no idea what she was talking about, but several of the young boys at the table couldn’t hide their laughter. [click to continue…]
Did you know that modern orthodox Jews dislike black hat Jews more than black hat Jews dislike the modern orthodox? I was just as shocked as you when I found out the news, it was reported in a recent survey of the orthodox Jewish community, that although black hat Jewish dislike of the modern orthodox community is more outwardly shown, the modern community harbors far more hate for the frummies than they like to show in real life. [click to continue…]
Masturbation is kind of like loshon horah, both are terrible sins and everyone is doing it pretty often. Typically when someone wants to find out if you’re frum, they ask if you keep kosher and shabbos, if you masturbate on shabbos you are mechalel shabbos and aren’t frum, but if you masturbate during the week it’s cool, you only get kurase cut off, of the ex communicated variety, don’t worry your penis will remain intact, although according to the Light of Efraim* you will be chased through the skies by all the semen you killed and then you will be boiled in your semen. How on earth our neshamas without their bodies can be boiled is beyond me, but I don’t want to find out. [click to continue…]