In large frum communities, there are enough shabbos afternoon minyanim in living rooms and garages to seriously inhibit the funds put forth to the third meal. Add to this, the fact that most of the shul goes home for it and that towards the end of shabbos people are already licking their lips due to motzoi shabbos pizza syndrome and you have a lackluster meal in most cases. Chazal may say that you’re supposed to leave room for the third meal, but I think it’s one of those things that people ignore. Where I come from, a bunch of old men drink flat seltzer, dip stale rolls into less than edible tuna and sing depressing songs and listen to a depressing speech by someone who probably had to be coerced in the back of some takeout food store to stay for shaloshudos in order to give the speech.

So imagine my surprise when I showed up to shaloshudos a few weeks ago and saw what should have been something served at a lavish gala kiddush. Not only was there a table full of interesting salads, dips, and cakes, but there was also cold cuts and a meat cholent. Tonight at shaloshudos there was a cholent with two types of meat and kishke. Shaloshudos in my town is not for the faint of heart, I have watched as shabbos has ended during the rabbis lengthy shalashudos drosh with surprise at the lack of attention people were paying to the clock. I have watched with shock as 30 men (there are always a few who sit and learn in shul) and a full table of women have sat down at what is supposed to be a drab and depressing meal.

It’s inexplicable, how this shaloshudos is possible. Never has there been stale challah, flat soda, or sad looking tuna fish and egg salad. Never has it been empty and never have I been surrounded by nebs (not too many bay area nebs due to the high cost of rent) I’m wondering if there are any other lavish, non-depressing, nice third meals out there. Of course, it doesn’t that the rabbi gets up every week and notes that people have taken their shaloshudos z’chus for the next 3 weeks, people probably fight over sponsoring it and it’s one of the few times that you can sit across from the rabbi and talk in learning or ask all of your inappropriate questions. It also doesn’t hurt that the closest kosher restaurant open on a Saturday night is 380 miles away.

Find out more about the third meal on 4torah.com

Some people only have one single theme – yours seems to be mockery and scorn of your own family – Jews. Particularly & peculiarly religious Jews; I guess in your mind no others do anyting deserving of scorn. Sure, the Jews you choose to scorn & cut down are religious Jews but that must be OK for U b/c they are so, so, so what? Are they only doing things you scoff at? No, they do much good – in fact they volunteer extremely out of proportion to their small numbers & donate vastly out of proportion to their income – shown in numerous studies BTW, much more than any other group of Jews or nonJews. So they are imperfect human beings whom you don’t like and of whom you only see the bad. You permit yourself to mock even the most profound leaders who have inspired & given hope to generations. I have no idea how we ever became contacts on Facebook but I am unfriending you.

Heshy i am very disappointed with you lately, there is a fine line between comedy and hate, and you are starting to cross the line, i must say as a frum jew, reading your posts makes me feel hated.
apparently you are failing to disguise you personal pains in your work.
and while i am at it, please stop pretending you know something about life that “frum” people dont.
dont forget who you are buddy.
Sincerely Yoely

The rabbi in my shul seems to have something negative to say about bloggers every week and he’s absolutely right. Most of the bloggers out there are focusing on the spreading of negativity throughout the internet because good things are rarely that interesting. The few times I have decided to write something positive and uplifting have ended in disaster. My wife likes to think that I’m not really writing negative things, but I’m in the satire and humor game, I’m poking fun at people and rarely is that talking about the beautiful shabbos meal we went to that had such uplifting zemiros and divrei torah. Of course, that beautiful shabbos meal or chesed organization you volunteer for becomes much more interesting when it’s found at that the Rabbi in charge is involved in some sex scandal.

So in honor of the fact that most frum bloggers don’t like to say good things about frum Judaism, I have decided that I would start writing good things about frum Jews. I can’t say whether or not it will be satire, but who really cares, as long as it makes us frum yidden look like the respectable people that we are. It’s high time that someone took the reigns and led blogging into positive territory. It’s high time that frum bloggers start actually helping the frum community, through positive writing, propaganda, and cover ups. In all seriousness, I want you all to tell me if I’m doing a good job in helping the frum community through positive blogging, whether the posts are real or not.

If you have anything that’s positive, interesting, and has the potential to cause a great kiddush hashem, please send it over.

find more on 4torah.com

Today in shul, two people decided to have a conversation while the rabbi was speaking. It didn’t help that these two people aren’t regulars and it didn’t help that they were sitting near me. I shushed once and they didn’t seem to notice, someone else shushed and they just went on blabbing in supposed undertone. In a more east coast  style community, someone would probably have gone up to them, but here on the west coast they say that men aren’t real men. I had a grand scheme in my head, but I’m sure that I would have been called out for publicly embarrassing the two guys.

It’s not like I was even listening to the rabbi, in fact I was reading a Rav Moshe biography, but I felt bad for all the other folks who I knew wouldn’t have enough balls or know how to shush these MFers that decided that their conversation was more important than the weekly fire and brimstone that was coming from the Rabbi.

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I am certian that if Ben and Jerry’s ever decided to make an ice cream line dedicated to the Gedolim, a portion of the proceedings would go to kupat ha’ir and kars 4 kids. I also want to commend those who came up with these names because I tried in vain to come up with ice cream names and I came up with less than 5 and I’m fairly knowledgeable when it comes to gedolim. Please share any ideas in the comments.

Rav Yosef Ber Solevachip

Rav Baruch very berry bear lebowitz

The Vanilla Gaon

Chofetz Key Chaim Pie

The rashbutter pecan

Ovadia Fro-Yosef

Reshlakesh Raspberry Rebel

Rav Yoily Tuttifrutiibaum

Rav Kolko Pebbles

Nove-mint-sker Rebbe

Rav Shimon Bar Yo Pie

Rav Kaminetsky-limepie

Rav Shach-olate chip

Shimshon Rafael Hershey’s

Chazon Ish Food

Rambonbon

Mechab-erry

Redaktor pepper

Rumbum Raisin

Adin Stein-salty caramel

Shlomo carmelbach whirl

Rogotchover rocky road

Find more gadol theme food on 4torah.com

Protest gets violent at Women of the Wall’s first prayer service at the Kotel after landmark court decision; will conflict escalate in the Middle East after Israel’s strike on Syria?; Meredith Ganzman speaks to Jewish celebs at the Drama Desk awards nomination ceremony; and Israeli teens bring science to the streets of New York with The Sci-Tech Schools’ Street Labs.

I follow you on facebook fairly regularly and noticed your post on what you hate about baalei teshuva. Now before all of your fans jump me for being offended by something you wrote, I read your site and facebook page regularly and find most of what you say to be true and funny, but this is the first time I’ve been truly offended by something you have posted. What’s with the hate? What did the BT community ever do to you? Aren’t you married to someone who didn’t grow up frum? Aren’t you yourself skeptical about frumkeit and constantly on a path that doesn’t make you the regular run of the mill FFB?

I’m also saddened that you chose to foster hatred and sinat chinam on erev shavuot. Just because we were searching for something that our former secular lifestyles couldn’t offer us, doesn’t make us crazy or less Jews than you. Sure, it’s funny to offer jabs at our slow pace of learning the way of the frum community. We can’t exactly unlearn our bacon flavoring, proper grammar usage, and table manners over night. It takes years to develop a palate for tasteless, mostly brown, foods. It takes years to learn how to dress like an 18th century Polish peasant. It takes years for us to speak like we’re trying to transliterate Yiddish to English.

Do you think we enjoy looking like fools when we daven? Do you think it’s easy for us to throw away our entire music collection, only to be told later on that secular music is technically kosher? You act as if we are doing this stuff on purpose. How are we supposed to just join a community and know exactly what to do? I have news for you, we want to be just like you. We envy FFB’s, but you’re not making it any easier by fostering the discrimination that we receive from them.

I would love to have the proper hand motions when learning, the proper bowing technique for modiim, and the proper enunciation of my Hebrew. It’s not easy being a baal teshuva, it’s a scary FFB dominated world out there and most of the time Frum Satire serves as our guide. I cannot tell you how many kiruv rabbis and rebetzins read your blog for insight into how to teach us better, how to help us integrate. My friends and I all read you on a regular basis, but I couldn’t let your post slip by as just another jab at us.

I saw that you mentioned something about the FFB Master Race as a joke, but it’s no joke. I’m not sure if you realize this, but you’re one of the only FFB’s that understands the BT community, yet most of the time we become too frum to read your blog and then some us tend to bash it. Yes, I admit that there are folks within the BT community who feel it their right to give unsolicited mussar. I would never dream of giving someone mussar, it’s offensive to tell someone other than yourself how to go about in their yiras shamayim or avodat Hashem.

I really wondered if you would post this and to convince you to put it up as a form of teshuva for causing sinat chinam on erev shavuot, I figured I would give you a list of things that are good about BT’s. I know you like to look at the evil and bad, but for once we will reveal the good.

I know you FFB’s like to think that you’re better, yes, there are lots of sources as to why we’re better, but in the end you rarely see BT’s running any of the major Jewish organizations or yeshivas. It’s like we BT’s should rise up and demand rights, but instead we hope that someday we will be considered on a level equal to that of FFB’s. I should note that you may fail to see the value we add to your community, but we have brought fashion, music and good food to the frum community. Without us you would probably be stuck in your 18th century garb, eating kishke, while listening to that smooth jazz obsession that the frum community is still stuck on.

Thanks,

If you post this, please do so anonymously.

Let’s start with the basics. Judaism is a religion in which the ultimate goal is to reach moral and spiritual perfection and develop closeness to G-d. Although this requires tremendous work, and perfection is difficult, Judaism has been extraordinarily successful throughout the ages. If that is the case, why do we  oftentimes hear about “frum” people behaving in ways that are morally repugnant?

The following paragraph is a succinct summary from “simpletoremmember.com” which addresses the issue of frum people doing improper things:

“Observant families are generally harmonious and close, kindness and charities proliferate, drugs, and alcoholism are miniscule. The overall standards of observant communities on the whole and the range of desirable social characteristics are the envy of the broader world. Nevertheless, people have freedom of choice, and otherwise observant people may choose to act inappropriately. The truth is that all people, observant or otherwise, do some things wrong at some times. The Talmud assures us that even the greatest spiritual giants transgress the “dust of speaking badly about one’s neighbor” at some time or another. We are on this earth just because we are imperfect; we are here to grow and improve.”

“This is not to justify the wrongs of anyone, and certainly not the wrongs done by religious people. I am merely pointing out that Orthodox people, like the rest of us, sometimes really mess up. Now Judaism definitely regards such behavior from an observant person as being much more morally repugnant. It goes so far as to call such behavior a Chilul Hashem, a desecration of G-d’s name, for why would someone want to keep G-d’s Torah if those who claim to do so behave in a scurrilous fashion. In fact, a Jew who lies or cheats is no different from a Jew who eats pork or doesn’t pray – he is at best a partially committed observant Jew. And in one sense he is worse. For a Jew who eats pork only sins against G-d, whereas a Jew who lies or steals sins against man and G-d.”

That having been said,  let’s try to understand the position of a non-frum, or almost non-frum, person who attributes his lack of observance to the improper acts of frum people? Though I am far from an authority on kiruv issues, I feel that there needs to be a basic understanding of this common approach and in what type of setting these seeds of confusion are sewn. By analyzing the root of the problem we will find it easier to address this doubting individual.

To this end, an important point must be addressed: What of the Jew who hears, repeats, and often even relishes a piece of news about a fellow Jew who has been enticed by the yetzer ha’rah and has slipped up? Has he, too, not sinned both against God and his fellow man? One whose mouth haphazardly spews whatever he has let in to his all-too-believing ears, is likewise sinning against his fellow Jew. So how do we avoid becoming people who ramble, (in our children’s presence no less!) about everyone else’s dirty laundry, if we are getting bombarded, via a myriad of technological gadgets, with every piece of trivial news – practically in real time? How can we expect for our children, or society as a whole, not to question the sincerity of holy Jews if we ourselves are constantly throwing them under the bus?

What must be contemplated is whether the “rambler”, as we’ll call him, possesses an even greater shortcoming than the sinner himself – one which is very hard, if not impossible to reverse.

The Rambler, who believes this toxic chatter and perpetuates the vicious cycle by repeating it to anyone willing to listen, is doing himself a great disservice by listening, and even more harm by believing and repeating the gossip. He has now made it a part of him, and with that he has done two terribly destructive things. For one, he has become, and made others, desensitized to whatever improper action or deed has now become the topic of his conversation with friends and family. And secondly, possibly even worse, he may begin to assume that if “frum” people can do something like steal or lie, then it’s just not worth being frum at all.

To arrive at this conclusion is a dreadful error. It is important to note that one who comes to this decision is rarely one who was a completely God fearing Jew prior to hearing this news and has now decided that the whole “Jewish thing” just isn’t for him. There is typically a root issue, or sometimes even erosion in the foundation of this individual’s avodas Hashem, and the news of “frum people” doing improper things becomes a convenient rationalization for his lack of observance. He is using every regrettable story about a Jew who has sinned as an excuse that  slowly chips away at the iron-clad fortress of kedushas yisroel that should be the solid bedrock of every Jew’s yehadus.

Unfortunate is the person who allows his thoughts about the very people Chazal call “mamleches kohanim v’goy kadosh” to sour to the point that he begins to verbalize negativity about various sects of Jews – or yidishkeit as a whole. There’s no denying that a Jew sinning, in whatever area, causes a chillul Hashem, but publicizing, relishing, and then using the iniquities of others to feel better about one’s own weaknesses, is a more tragic chillul Hashem – one which is far more destructive.

There are so called “Jewish Publications” out there which thrive on publicizing and disseminating a negative stereotype about Torah observant Jews, one which couldn’t be farther from the truth. I suppose a readership eager for more slander about the “ultra-orthodox” and the Torah world won’t care much for articles honoring the hundreds of thousands of ehrlicha yidden who exemplify what it means to be an eved Hashem and a wholesome person. Orthodox communities the world over are brimming with men and women who are scrupulous in every facet of their life. Yes, they are as meticulous in their tax filing as they are in their search of a proper shiduch for their children. They examine their interactions with Jews and gentiles alike as carefully as they examine their lulav and esrog. But you won’t hear a word about them from the individuals and publications that are Hell-bent on feeling good about their replacement of traditional Jewish life with the one they’ve remodeled for themselves. Their abandonment of whatever halachos inconvenience them bothers their conscious less when they are able to find someone amongst the Torah world who makes mistakes.

As for the purported sinners, the best approach is to give them the benefit of the doubt, while knowing in our hearts and minds, that regardless of whether or not the sin was actually committed, it is the wrong thing to do. But as far as the observer is concerned, how detrimental it is to use the knowledge of someone else’s blunder as further rationalization for our own aveiros – ones which we have undoubtedly decided are “less bad”.

Only Hashem can ascertain the amount of punishment or reward one will receive for any given act he’s done, based on the thousands of factors and variables in his life. So how futile it is to use the growth or shortcomings of anyone else as a measuring stick for how well we’re doing.

One should feel bad for a person whose security in his avodas Hashem is on such an unstable footing that he relishes the opportunity to use the exposed sins of people, whom he perceives as being on a different level of observance than himself, as a frame of reference for his own level of frumkeit.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, every immature comment, (often posted by an equally immature person,) that finds its way into the poisonous world of the news, blogs, and social media, wrongly becomes our litmus test for how well we’re doing and how “frum” we are. Focusing on these blog commenters, or on the subjects of the articles they recklessly gab about, is certainly not an ideal strategy for working on one’s character. For instance: not checking one’s fruits and vegetables for bugs doesn’t become less of an issue because we read about someone who wears a long black coat and “side-curls” who committed grand larceny. A woman not covering her hair or dressing improperly isn’t less wrong because there is a Rebbetzin out there who does…whatever.

This seems to be a common trap. If we aren’t comfortable with our levels of ahavas and yiras Hashem, we assuage ourselves with the knowledge that there is someone else out there whom we can call a hypocrite. Although this may help stifle our feelings of insecurity, and help us pass positive judgment on our own shortcomings, it doesn’t and won’t do much to fool the Ultimate Judge.

A frum person is one who cares about what it says in Shulchan Aruch -  because he cares about what his creator wants of him, (which the Shulchan Aruch does a very good job at explaining.) Period. Being frum doesn’t mean one never fails; being frum means that when he does fail it bothers him and he wants to change. When his yetzer ha’rah gets the better of him and his mistakes are pointed out to him, he is grateful that it has been brought to his attention and that he has been saved from a lifetime of repeating the same sin. As Nelson Mandela once said about himself “I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying”. That approach – of sometimes falling, but always getting up – requires a tremendous amount of honesty – a brutal honesty many of us lack.

Another reason we easily fall in to the trap of busying our thoughts and speech with the shortcomings of others is as follows: We are inclined to think that as long as there are others who are failing, we’ll take advantage of the Heavenly bell-curve when Hashem collects the papers and marks all the tests. At the very least, we try to convince ourselves that, because our “grades” have dropped due to the less than perfect “class” we were placed in, He will likely average out all our “grades” and we’ll make by with a “passing mark.” In our limited understanding of Hashem’s ways, we tend to think that we are judged at the end of our lifetime in a manner similar to the way our high school teachers would grade our report cards. Science – 83, American History – 72, Math – 91 (or 68 in my case), and English 85…Your average: 83 – great! If only it were that easy on that crucial, final exam.

As we say on Rosh Hashanah: “aiyn shichichah lifnaiy kisaiy kivodechah” -”there is no forgetfulness before Your Throne of Glory”. There are no plea bargains with the Almighty! And undoubtedly, the most inadequate justification is “I did talk loshon hara pretty often, but at least I didn’t get caught doing the terrible things that the other guy did…”

Let’s face it; Hashem will hold each and every one of us accountable for every word of loshon hara, every insect eaten on an improperly washed piece of lettuce, and every missed minyan. Scary? For some. For others, the knowledge that the King of Kings watches us closer than we can fathom, is simultaneously comforting and demanding. It reminds us that our obligation is to know the minutia of halacha. We have survived the generations precisely because many of our grandparents fought with blood and tears to discern what a kizayis and a kli shlishi were, and had disgust rather than infatuation for anything but the d’var Hashem. They didn’t survive lowering themselves to the standards set by the spiritually weaker ones in their shtetle or by making compromises in their level of observance.

This remains the challenge of the Jewish people – the challenge of preserving and transmitting pure, unadulterated Judaism. This challenge demands that we adapt to the times with the greatest of caution. These struggles require us to be careful with what our eyes look at or how we cause others to look at us, notwithstanding whether or not those are tests others in our circle are passing. The people to whom it is important to pass every nisayon, regardless of whether or not others are passing those same tests, are the ones who live fulfilled lives. Being frum means preparing for and passing the tests that come our way, and not saying “no one else is studying for it, so I’ll fail with everyone else” Being frum means living a life looking inward at ourselves to strive for perfection as opposed to looking outward at others to justify our failings and flaws.

Our Father in heaven will calculate the schar va’onesh each of us will receive after our lifetimes with exactitude. We stand to gain delightful reward if we view ourselves and our brothers in only the best light, while keeping our standards high and maintaining the spiritual level expected of us  – even when at times those around us make it difficult.

May Hashem grant us the maturity and strength to judge every Jew favorably. And if what we hear about others falls short of what our Torah Ha’kedoshah wants from them, let us use it as an impetus to further perfect ourselves and become truly frum Jews.

From the frum propaganda “news” site Matzav

Find more frum propaganda on 4torah.com

I’ll call my tatty he’s on the vaad hatznius

Look, her stockings have no seams

Damn, Yanky, she’s so hot we could get a heter for bleach

What a tuchus, but we don’t marry modernishe maidlach

Hat Tip Rachmuna Litzlon

It’s a hard discussion to have because when you throw in religion, you usually get extreme point of views. Both views make perfect sense, the classic “why do you need to ruin our party” is all over this issue. The underlying fear is that this will lead to other violations of social norms within orthodoxy. Next thing you know it, the nudist of the wall may appear and why should we stop them. What about the transgender people of the wall who demand to daven without a mechitza? Then on the other side you have the fear that Charedim will begin to monopolize the wall, what happens when they start to ban birthright groups, Christians, and women not dressed according to their extreme standards from visiting and praying at the wall.

Who really knows what the proper way to pray is? Is there any halacha against women doing mitzvos they are not commanded in? Is a woman in talis and tefillin that offensive? Who decides what is offensive? Then again we have the slippery slope issue. Are these women merely demanding a once a month minyan or will it become daily? How can you have kavannah when you know that you are disturbing so many people?

I’m not sure it can be solved, the worst way to fuel the fire is what the Charedim are doing – giving it publicity and attention. It makes it look like a publicity stunt, when in reality it’s been going on for 25 years. The frum community may think these women are being spiteful, picking a fight, or not having true kavannah, but how can you say that. They are just as extreme in their views as you are, they want to pray just as much as you want to.

Of course, we’re now back at square one. The only issue is that everyone is judging everyone and no one will come to a conclusion anytime soon.

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