It’s hard to convey anything satirical about 9/11. Then again, some people never fail to help by providing their warped perspective on things. The item that made me guffaw the most was hearing that some are makpid to commemorate 9/11 on the 23rd of Elul — the real yahrtzeit of the event, since following the secular calendar is chukas hagoiyim. Shocking to hear that their best attempt at national unity is to be close, but not close enough to the rest of the country.
On a related note, someone lamented that after 9/11 men are afraid of putting on tefilin on airplanes, and this helps the terrorists win the war.
These are the same folks who recently told me that most orthodox people do not eat raspberries unless they are kashered first. I thought — kashered? you mean hagalah, libun ba’eish? doesn’t that ruin them? They had no idea what I meant (since they had no idea what halacha was). They explained to me that raspberries have invisible bugs that you cannot see, but this means you can’t eat them. (WTF) That’s what their ruv told them. According to raspberry growers, however, these plants (like nearly all plants) attract bugs — visible bugs that are easily removed with your fingers. Or like most of the products we buy in the store — these are eradicated by pesticides. All you need to do is wash them.
I remember that in the month following 9/11 there was a general heightened threat of domestic terror in the US and I started to see all sorts of protective measures. My favorite was the kevlar kapatos — these had high-performance fabrics, like the kind used in bulletproof vests, and were used to protect chassidim from knife fights and bullets. Misnagdim also wanted protection and started to manufacture kevlar and high performance polyethylene ballistic talis katan shirts. These could be worn to protect vital organs and also to fulfill the mitzvah of wearing tzitis.
Personally I’ve always wanted the Under Armour company to make a line of compression tzisis undershirts that could make me look buff and frum at the same time.
Even the UA logo looks like you can put tzitis on it.
This satire post is dedicated to the honor of the victims and heroes of 9/11. It is intentionally not very funny. May their blood be avenged.
Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/2192192956/
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