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The aggadic schism between the schools of R’ Akiva and R’ Ishmael acts to distinguish between accounts of past events that may seem largely irrelevant to modern-day observance, but tends to form the underpinnings of how we are trained to relate to Judaism nonetheless. [click to continue…]
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It usually starts like this: You run around Friday afternoon trying to fit in all the important stuff you need to do before shabbos, like buy beer, go to the library, and pick up the cleaners. You get home with an hour and a half left to 1) grab a piece of kugel, 2) check out the new simpsons, 3) take a shower, 4) shave, 5) get dressed, 6) have a last minute cigarette, and head off to shul, the time carefully approximated in your head. You’re on schedule, taking your shower, when suddenly you’re blindsided.
You hear the pipes going a split second before it happens, your brain barely has enough time to register an attack, and suddenly the water changes to freezing rain. You jump out of the way and try to make it hotter, but you go a micron too far, and now it’s a lava storm. You just slap the faucet off as fast as you can, and somewhere in the back of your mind, a deep voice goes “Ding! Shower battle engaged.” [click to continue…]
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The natural progression of wedding planning dictates that somewhere along the way you should register with some big box store to take the fun out of gift giving. The first time I heard about wedding registries, I really didn’t believe it, what was the point of getting a gift if you knew what you were getting? It seemed to me that wedding registries took all the fun out of gift getting and giving. Had the old box shake to predict what gift was inside, lost its weight? [click to continue…]
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It seems that everyone (most of the frum community) was pretty pissed off at Deborah Feldman, but i guess those people never really wandered around the hundreds ex-chassidic blogs before. I also guess that every time one of our own finds a new life and talks frankly and negatively about the one “we” choose to pursue many frum folks go pretty crazy. Now to put it into an even stranger place, people are saying that the media whores featured on Oprah are the true Chassidim and Deborah Feldman is just representing a small minority and should not be listened to. [click to continue…]
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Don’t get me wrong, I love Israel, the first thing I do when I get off the plane is take a bus to Jerusalem and stuff my face with some shawarma and rugalech from the shuk. Then I hit up the kotel for some God talk and then I roam around the Charedi neighborhoods to see if there are some riots or beat downs I can take part in. However, there are those first time to Israel peeps who come back to America and can’t stop talking about it for months…
Apperently the video touched a raw nerve, because when I posted it on Facebook there was a nice Jewish argument about being frum and not being eligible for birthright, false because I went on brithright and was the only frum kid on that trip. One of my roommates even thought my tefillin was a device I was using to shoot heroine with.
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You heard that right, I still have goals. First of all, having an addiction gives you something to do with your time. Plus, it gives you a solid excuse that everyone you know can blame things on. Nobody asks you any more loaded questions like “So, are you dating anyone now?” Or, “You’re still working there?” Because one, they feel bad for you, what with your life savagely hijacked by “the drugs” [click to continue…]
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Someone, I forgot who, sent me this picture he saw on the Wall Street Journal website.
My ideas:
Don’t worry you’ll find me.
I’m the one without a hat.
Jeez these guys smell real bad.
You’d think I had tzaras with all the space their giving me.
I feel so modern!
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I received this in one of the many spam emails I get from any number of friends of mine who run shuls and chabad houses, once in a very rare while do I open them. I liked this one and even though I do tend to shake hands with the opposite sex, I think that anyone who can give over the practice not to shake hands while teaching a valuable lesson ought to be listened to.
I won’t shake your hand, ask me why? [click to continue…]
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