Frum Satire | Jewish Comedy

Someone mentioned this phenomena last night on facebook to me- but I have also wondered about it for years, as I am sure many of you have as well. Why on earth don’t bentcher designers place “bentching” on the first page- because after all they are bentchers aren’t they? Sometimes it takes light years to navigate through bentchers and you think you have it and then realize its some other weird prayer that looks like bentching. Of course you also have those bentchers that are really megilas esthers and tehilim but don’t even get me started on that- whatever happened to not placing a stumbling block in front of your fellow Jew huh?

Now I know when people daven they pray for all sorts of things. Some pray for ordinary things like money, good health, sex and doing well in miztvos, while others may pray for a good crop, good concert season and that their girlfriend is not cheating on them. Then there are those that pray at the pump. Thats right folks, a faith group out in St Louis had organized praying sessions for lower gasoline prices and it looks like it worked somewhat. I don’t expect gas to ever go below $3 a gallon again, in fact I think we will eventually have the same prices as Europe.

But that did get me thinking, as did that post a while back about paying people to find your wife at the kotel while praying, or was it praying at the kotel for a wife, no matter, whatever it was its a pretty lucrative business- this praying thing- because between you and me, most folks just don’t want to or know how to pray. I myself have been “praying” for close to a quarter decade (I just needed to say that) and haven’t really figured out how to pray. I got the shuckel down correct, but other then a few forward and backward strokes, some chest clops and a couple of bows- I don’t do much besides pinch the fat on my arm in between the tefilin straps- have you ever tried this? Its way fun.

Imagine if you could pay someone to pray for your health, wealth, family and loads of other things. I mean if we could have people praying at the kotel for us to find a wife, and folks praying for lower gas prices, we may as well have people praying for all sorts of things.

My faucets in my house are backwards, they are all switched from the normal sides of hot and cold and they turn the opposite way- it makes for a confusing time when washing my hands, washing the dishes and taking a shower. I was informed recently that this may be because Chassidim own the house I live in and one of the “things” in the Chasidic community is to do things backwards.

A friend of mine worked as nurse in New Square and he said he went through hell to try and get a white jacket with the buttons on the normal side. He said that the buttons on mens and women’s clothing are opposite sides of normal. Hmm…taking the assimilation threat a little too seriously aren’t we.

How far does this backward way of doing things go and I don’t mean backwards in some closed minded way, I mean it in the literal way. I just want normal faucets. Even the thing I put my garden hose into goes the opposite way of normal.

Back in the day when I used to ask the point in wearing a hat or a black velvet yarmulke, I used to get the same response. Besides for it somehow becoming the “uniform” of the yeshivish world- there is a deeper meaning I was told. The black velvet yarmulkes and hats create a double head covering- which apparently is needed when you daven, because yarmulkes are a minhag so its sure as hell not needed regularly.

The question is this- is there any source for double head coverings or is this a bunch of yeshiva guy urban legend BS?

Show me the source!

There was much advice handed to us during our weekly Thursday afternoon mussar shumzem in high school, most of it was about how we shouldn’t look at girls or listen to non-Jewish music. But one of those pieces of advice was used this past weekend and it made a great impression on my host and me.

My host had cooked a great meal and was tired, I decided to wash the dishes, loads of them, and throw the rest in the dishwasher. It made me feel good and my host even better. I guess thsoe Rabbis were right about that.

Washing the dishes is better then thank you.

Its a boy! - good luck

We are engaged - good luck

My son just got bar mitzvahed - good luck

I’m going to a wedding today - good luck

It’s our 50th anniversary - good luck

I can just keep going on and on but you get the idea, or maybe you don’t. Why on earth do we wish people mazel tov at various happy events. You would think Yasher Koach or congratulations would be more in store then good luck.

Oh we just got engaged! Good luck, you wont last a year. Thats what it sounds like to me when I start thinking about the term mazel tov. It just sounds so negative, kind of like when you go skydiving and someone says good luck instead of have fun.

So this past week between jobs I took my old summer job of inspecting camps for the State of NY back for a week or so. It was fun because as always it provides a rare seen glimpse and up close encounter at the mysterious chassidim, that I am usually just honking at to get out of the middle of the road in Monsey. Rather then honking or flipping off for driving like maniacs, I am talking with, while auditing their government funded food programs. Jewish geography is played and shocked women speak in hushed yiddish wondering how on earth a frum kid came to be a camp inspector (college internship btw)

The thing about the job is this, every year I have to deal with the questions of all my non-Jewish coworkers asking all sorts of questions. I guess I am in insider, even though I do not really have an in and sometimes make up answers to questions I have wondered myself- just to try and excuse some of the practices that Chassidishe camps and bungalows seem to have.

Here are the two main questions asked of me:

Why do all the kids stare as if they have never seen non-Jews before?

It becomes very annoying I must say when you have 500 little kids staring at you for two hours. I sometimes say “what are you staring at?” in yiddish and that freaks em out”. But seriously, the litvishe kids do not do this, and its both boys and girls, they stare at me and debate if I am a Yid or not- its awkward. Its not as if these kids all live in a shtetle, or they don’t have all these non-Jewish workers at the camp. Why the staring.

Why are the camps so dirty?

I always make up excuses for this, by usually saying, who has time to be clean when you have so many kids? But this is just to defend them, I also wonder the same thing, its not only in the camps- its a general aspect of Charedi neighborhoods to be filthy with garbage strewn about.

On a side note, I was at a camp the other day and the head waiter comes up to me and says. “Are you Heshy?” I say yes why? Well because some family in the other room really wants to meet you. And so at an extremely yeshivishe camp I met the Vail Family from Crown Heights who were overjoyed more then anyone I have ever met and meeting the guy behind frum satire. So they get a shout out.

By the way my biggest challenge with Charedim is finding some positive way to make fun of them and its nearly impossible for me.

As many of you realize by my lack of response to comments, facebook messages and emails I do not have the internet. I do however have some friends who have the internet and was over at my buddy Jacobs house the other night for some biking, chilling and internet mooching. He also decided to catch me off guard and film me ranting and raving about random stuff.

Sometimes I think of work.

Sometimes I think of my bills.

Sometimes I think of biking.

Sometimes I think of hiking.

Sometimes I think of my girlfriend.

Sometimes I think of blog posts.

Sometimes I think of what I am going to that day.

Sometimes I water my garden.

Sometimes I look for random things.

Sometimes I put stuff in my car.

Sometimes I pack up for a trip.

Sometimes I look at mail.

But never do I have full concentration during davening. Its been plaguing me lately, whatever I do I cannot just daven, I try and try and then my mind wanders, I am mumbling the words by heart, my tefilin is on, but my mind is somewhere else. This happens regardless of if I am at shul or in my living room. It doesn’t matter if it’s a weekday or shabbos, heck it doesn’t matter if its Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah.

I even thought of this post while davening, I always make up my mind before davening that I am going to try and concentrate on davening, forget kavannah, I am just trying to daven without doing anything listed above and more.

I find that those “praying with fire” type books say things I already know, and are quite obvious. I have heard the “we are standing in front of the almighty” countless times during sermons and mussar shmuzem, it doesn’t work buddy, maybe my emunah is just out of whack- but I cannot seem to imagine the king right there as I am debating what to write for my next blog during ashrei.

Actually I find that the only time I have kavannah is when I talk to God directly in English during long drive by myself or on hikes. For me Hisbodedut is the only way to go in the davening department, yet I don my tefilin every day, try to go to shul and think random thoughts instead of about the gory of God.

I was reading Praying with Fire in shul this past shabbos and found that the book would probably be detrimental to someone like myself, who hasn’t really gotten in to the routine of davening three times a day, everyday, my wishy washy friends who go to sleep without saying maariv would read something like “the kavannah of our times is so bad that our prayers aren’t accepted” with a mind that says- shit that means I shouldn’t even daven. I read a bunch of stuff in the book that had things like, your prayers aren’t good enough, or some gates aren’t open unless you pour your soul out. Great, the only thing I ever pour out is my recently done laundry so I can fold it during Yishtabach.

I wrote about this awhile back in the post “what do you think about during shoman esray?”