An Exciting new Outlook on Israel with surreal interludes provided by the electronic memoirs of this Samuel Pepys-like writer.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sea Otters Holding Hands
I have noticed a dearth of websites entitled 'Sea Otters Holding Hands' and have decided to create one. I feel that it could teach mankind as a whole a lot about cooperation and love and the Jewish community a lot about positive relationships and Shidduchim. Not that I am anti negiah. These are male Otters.
What do you mean, 'thats just weird' ?
Otters live in single gender communities (rather like Yeshivot or seminaries on the High Seas). They practice polygamy just like our forefathers. Do n't knock Sea Otters, alright!
Ok... Time for more tripe (See my comments on Frum and Flipping ... never mind my comments just read "Frum and Flipping" its a very well written blog).
I had the best Hol HaMoed ever. This is a series of semi holy days in between Succot and Shmini Atzeret that last 7 days. They pretty much rocked this year.
I was left with a bit of a problem though:
What does a 29 year old guy do in Jerusalem on Hol HaMoed?
Normally this is a fairly easy question because it becomes, what does a 29 year old father do with the kids on Hol HaMoed (slowly slowly all my friends are getting married leaving me behind, whimper whimper). There are many answers to this question. I would need to have some kids first to answer this one.
Or where does a 29 year old take his wife or significant other? Again I have neither of these 2 relationships.
Or possibly where do I date ?
Well done shadchanim. Aparently there's a crisis and there are more girls than guys, I should be ... er rolling (I need a better word) in Shidduch dates. Not with this nice frum fella! There's more excitement in the abandoned monastery next to where I live.
I did all the usual frummy things, Simchat Beis Hashoeva, Visit Rabbis, learn Torah.
But what to make it special?
I know....
Beit Shemesh Fest!!
What could be better than a night of rocking out to some of the best Jewish rock acts and all for free ?
Ok, so it was filled with 18 year old yeshiva bochers and sem girls and I kept thinking.
Is this what a 29 year old guy does? Behave like I'm 18 again and bounce around in a Mosh pit slam dancing with guys twice as big as me and singing at the top of my voice.
Too right I do. Thats part of the problem with this whole waiting for a date business, you get all sullen and boring and when you finally get a date your probably no fun to be around anyway. I needed to let my hair (or the hair that is n't slowly disappearing) down and have some good kosher fun.
The rest of the week was great too, I saw my rabbis and reflected a lot on the way my life is going, and I generally feel rather happy.
A guten winter enjoy this video, it was great live.
Why is it after getting to the end of a bout of isru Chag Insomnia I start noticing wierd errors in the formatting of the blog that I have no idea how to fix.
I hope that my nice entry on Yom Kippur has n't been completely ruined.
How in the name of murgetroid did that happen ?
Oh @#$%^&*&^ to it I'm going to bed.
(Pause whilst Yosele east his own keyboard followed by this own shoes in anger. [or was it malnourishment?]) - I easted my keyboard, how on earth did I managed that !?!
Now I'm getting an attacked of the concentric brackets !!!! (followed by the hypens) What do i do ? ABANDON COMPUTER! ABANDON COMPUTER! ABANDON COMPUTER! Tune in next time for... 'What I did on my Holidays' Where Yosele plays with even more ridiculous colours. (Man... I should really go to bed)
In a time when families and friends should be together chilling out under the covering of the Sukkah. we should remember Gilad Shalit, who has been away from his family for 3 years.
He has been denied all the usual rights of a soldier in captivity, his family did not know if is was alive or dead until Friday. Let us hope and pray that he return home soon. This is the video that was recieved on friday.
I feel like using the Intenet to spread more love.
(Is not a thing that you should freely admit as many people would tell you that the Internet is filled with plenty of love anyway, normally involving naughty things, This is where I tell you that Im a good clean living boy and this is not 'one of those sites')
Succot is all about love (Admittedly when I'm in a certain mood so is Tuesday) We have finished with Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement) which is all about harsh Judgement, and then we are enveloped in the wings of Eternal Kindness, symbolised by the Succah. We live for 7 days shaded from the harsh sun in our rickety booths. Its like a king who had a son who had commited a crime and instead of giving him a harsh sentence, he sent the son out of the palace until the crime had been forgotten. We have left our 'palaces' ( or in my case small corner of a dorm) and now are living in exile in our Succah.
I was alarmed by various news stories about how the internet has been used for evil, false love, acts of hatred, lust and the spread of anger. Here is a challenge for all my readers... yes all 3 of you! I want you to send an e-mail to someone you have n't spoken to in ages and tell them that you love them. There are many lonely people in the world who need to have kindness extended to them, lets spread that kindness.
I'm writing this blog in the aftermath of Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement). I spent a very meaningful day in my Yeshiva. I have recently joined a Post High School Yeshiva (Talmudic Academy) as a Kollel member (senior scholar). The Mashgiach Ruchani (spiritual councillor) added a facet to the Yom Kippur Service that moved me greatly and I thought that I would share my experience.
The Yom Kippur Service involves an aspect of communal confession (also known as Viddui). This is where the community confesses their sins to God. This is the key part of Teshuva which is badly translated as Repentence and better translated as Return. Viddui is acceptance that one has a problem. Once that I accept that I have a problem I can go about fixing the problem. This is rather like th 12 step program that recovering alcoholics and other addicts use where the first step is to recognise that one has an addicition. This is considered to be one of the hardest parts of Teshuva. The other difficult of this is that we say these confessions in Hebrew. Even for those who Hebrew is a first language, the words are rather archaic and for those with translations, the translations are normally rather brief and cursory translations of deep concepts. I also feel that sometimes when we are involved in Tefillah that our prayer is rather ritualistic, devoid of connection to God and devoid of genuine feeling. When I pray I sometimes feel as if I am 'praying by rote' and it is a real challenge, a very rewarding challenge, to try and connect with what I am reading and to make my prayers authentic. To combat this culture of in authentic confessions, during each confession, the Mashgiach Ruchani read one of the confessions in English and gave us an elabourated confession in addition. The confession that moved me the most was on the phrase:
"For the sin we have commited before you for scoffing" The commentary that the Mashgiach gave was that as humans we are given such a wonderful gift. That of speach. Instead of using it to fulfil divine will, to spread love and happiness I use it to put people down. Instead of trying to improve ourselves I make fun of other peoples' efforts. Instead of trying to be intelligent to engage in worthwhile activities I spend my time telling silly jokes and striving to be a ridiculous person. So much time is engaged in small talk and so very little in actually saying something of worth. His intention was that this year we behave in a more genuine manner. Dare I say it: to think before we speak. I recall Jonathan Swifts story in Gulliver's travels He encounters a group of perfect creatures called the Houyhnhnms, one of the special things about these creatures is that before they would say anything they would pause first and decide if it was worthwhile saying anything. Of course we should n't be serious miserable beings who only speak of lofty spiritual things and never actually have any fun. Yet there should be a balance, we were given a wonderful gift and time is finite in our all too short lives which we should fill with opportunities to spread love and happiness.
I have just had two days filled with prayer and introspection and have come to the conclusion that there is not enough love in the world. I must help fill the world with love. (Yes, its happened I've reverted to my old ways and have become a hippy again, gone are the days of angry Litvishness) I shall (with the help of the Eternal One and without making a neder; a binding oath which I would have to bring a large expensive sacrifice in a temple that does n't exist anymore) produce more blogs; new blogs, blogs of love and pink fuzzy squishyness ( pause for you to take out your sick bag ), blogs with pictures of cute little kittens and sewing patterns, and happy stories about people being nice to those beggar mice (you know, the ones with the stick and the bundle, the one that looks like this:)
blogs that spread happiness and Torah and light yadayadayada....
A Shana Tova (Good year, not the tyres) to you all!
I was told that a sign that you're settled as an Oleh is that you stop writing a blog....
BAH!
I shall continue my blog, just to show how unsettled I am.
In fact, here is a picture of a weasel, just to show you how unsettled I am, this weasel is an accurate portrayal of my state of mind. It looks about 29, its just had its birthday, its on a tour guiding course, it lives in a pile of its own clothes, it eats lentils, its sniffing for frum girly weasels....
OK so maybe the blog was n't such a great idea in terms of selling the Yosele image. (When did that ever stop me?)
