Benjie seems awfully picky to me

 Benjie, boss of What War Zone, and a good Twitter friend, takes issue with this sign:

He posted this as a sarcastic example of "great Israeli marketing" but, really, I don't think the error in the subtitle is all that noteworthy.

(I'm kidding.)
(Also: That wiener's ecstatic grin is the stuff of a seminary girl's nightmare)

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What Do You Do With Your Arba Minim After Sukkos?

A Guest Post By E. Fink

I have no idea what to do with my Arba Minim.

Every year I wonder the same thing. What are we supposed to do with our Arba Minim?

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Rush: How can they both be embarrasments?

Listening to Rush Limbough (which I do sometimes, but only for you) its hard to escape the conclusion that he views the Nobel Peace Prize as some kind of insult

Conservatives pounced on the the Nobel Prize committee's decision to award President Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, with talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh calling it a "greater embarrassment" than losing the Olympics.

Do I have this straight? Losing the Olympics was an "embarrassment" because it represented the international community's rejection of Obama. Meanwhile, winning the the Nobel is an even "greater embarrassment" because it represents the international community's acceptance of Obama? Why its almost as if Rush will construe everything that happens as reflecting poorly on Obama. (Never mind that all the Nobel really represents is acceptance from the 5 Norwegian nobodies who make up the prize committee.)

Furthermore, in what sense can being recognized for advocating for world peace be thought of as an embarrassment? Why is it only the RW lunatics who see a desire for peace as some kind of character flaw?

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A catalogue of Simchas Torah shtick

Neither Google nor Bing turn up a definitive catalogue of the various gimmicks and irreverences Jews commit in the synagogue on Simchat Torah, so I thought I'd try to create one here. Your input welcome.

1. High Holiday tune for the first Maariv*
2. Show tunes, or old standards, for the Chazan's part of Maariv.
3. Auctioning off every honor of the day* to the highest bidder
4. The gabbai calling someone up to read a verse of Ata Haraysa by his profession ("Mechubid HaCaterer Hagodol")
5. The gabbai calling someone up to read a verse of Ata Haraysa by reciting the verse himself ("Mechubid HaCaterer Hagodol mit de posuk hashem melech hashem molach hashem yimloch l'olam voed")
6. Completely removing the mechitza during hakafot*
7. Putting a shtreimal on the person leading the hakafa* (You don't usually wear a shtrimal and a talis simultaneously, but the joke has more bite (not that its all that funny in any case) if the person being forced to don the shtreimal isn't hasidic)
8. Blocking the torah's return to the ark after hakafos*
9. Reading the torah at night to the High Holiday tune (Everywhere I know does this all day, too)*
10. Someone taking an aliya and reciting the blessings using the "wrong" accent or pronunciation. (in a shtiebel the joke is to use a sing-song for asher notan lonu torat emet; in a Young Israel the joke is mumbling Borchee es heshem hamivoyrach and putting the accent on the wrong syllable of the word torah.)*
11. The reverse hagbah at maariv (Some do it all day, too)*
12. "Young Israel" tunes for Aleinu or Kaddish (Shteibles only)*
13. Funny hats (I've seen cowboy hats, bucharin kippot, and fezes, among others)
14. A shachris chazan in a formal cantors uniform
15. Singing parts of shachris not normally sung, usually to out of context tunes (ie modernisha tunes in a shteible, hasidic melodies in a big shul)*
16. Kids running around tying talitot together
17. Lubovitch style duchaning (in non Lubovitch shuls)
18. Stealing the kohens' shoes
19. Calling up any boy who can read for an aliyah*
20. Singing hamalach hagoel at kol nearim*
21. Singing wedding tunes at chosan Torah and Berayshis.*
22. Screaming out vayihi erev vayihi boker yom X in advance of the Torah reader.*
23. Screaming out "Boreh Pri Hagofen" when the Torah reader reaches Yom Hashishi
24. Neilah tunes at musaf
25. Abuse of the baal musaf, including: tying him up, carrying him out, spinning him around, and dousing him with water at the prayer for rain. 
26. Someone making a mezonos or shehakol blessing with the tune used for the kohen's blessing at the moment in musaf when that prayer would normally be said on an ordinary holiday

Everything on this list is something I've seen. The items starred were witnessed yesterday. How many of those are universal?


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Barry's Prize: Did the Nobel Peace Prize Just Jump the Shark?

The one real nice things about Barak Obama winning the Nobel Prize is all the egg it puts on GOP faces. Wasn't it just last week they were saying how his inability to singlehandedly secure the Olympics for Chicago (when, let's face it, Revlon doesn't make enough lipstick to pretty up that pig) was proof-positive the world hated him?

Otherwise, I agree this looks both political and suspicious. The deadline for nominations, as Republicans who can read have pointed out, was February 1, meaning Barak won the prize based on about a week's work. This makes some sense if we say he contributed to world peace during the year he was campaigning for president, but I agree its far more likely he won the prize because the Nobel Committee wished to make it clear Obama's diplomatic style is preferable to the brain dead, kill-all-the-bad-guys-we-can't-torture approach favored by Cowboy Bush.  (Here I use the word "cowboy" in the 18th century sense, ie, a crooked  pro-British traitor, who makes his money raiding and plundering, but the 21st century slang meaning "a reckless person who ignores risks" also applies.)

Its not my prize, so its not up to me how the Nobel is awarded. If the committee wants to cheapen their award by transforming it into a cheap political stunt, that's their prerogative. But if I was Obama, I'd turn the honor down, and ask to be reconsidered in a year or two. Its too soon for him to win a prize this big, and there is something unseemly about that. Turning it down would be classy, legendary, and, best of all, it would blunt the teeth of GOP carpers.

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Samuel Pepys discovers Simchas Torah

From the Diary Samuel Pepys Wednesday 14 October 1663 (Simchas Torah)

"Thence home and after dinner my wife and I, by Mr. Rawlinson’s conduct, to the Jewish Synagogue: where the men and boys in their vayles, and the women behind a lattice out of sight; and some things stand up, which I believe is their Law, in a press to which all coming in do bow; and at the putting on their vayles do say something, to which others that hear him do cry Amen, and the party do kiss his vayle. Their service all in a singing way, and in Hebrew. And anon their Laws that they take out of the press are carried by several men, four or five several burthens in all, and they do relieve one another; and whether it is that every one desires to have the carrying of it, I cannot tell, thus they carried it round about the room while such a service is singing. And in the end they had a prayer for the King, which they pronounced his name in Portugall; but the prayer, like the rest, in Hebrew. But, Lord! to see the disorder, laughing, sporting, and no attention, but confusion in all their service, more like brutes than people knowing the true God, would make a man forswear ever seeing them more and indeed I never did see so much, or could have imagined there had been any religion in the whole world so absurdly performed as this. Away thence with my mind strongly disturbed with them..."

Samuel Pepys was a 17th century Englishmen whose diary remains once of history's best sources for the English Restoration period, while providing first person accounts of events he witnessed such as the Great Plague of London, the Second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London. The diary, which he kept for ten years, also tells us much about the morality of the period: It describes his daily life including, his various affairs with servants and neighborhood women, the casual beatings he administered to his wife and servants, and the official bribes he cheerfully accepted-- all while imagining himself one of Britain and Christendom's shining stars. Its not known why he visited the shul on Simchat Torah; some speculate he, or his companion, was the congregation's landlord; others say he was merely curious, and indeed his curiosity about nearly all things is well represented in the diary.

[Note: I have not read the diary. My information comes from Wikipedia, an old TNR review of the newest edition of the diary, and osmosis.]

Tip of the hat to Pen Tivokesh.

Tweet of the day

"Why does chabad encourage secular Jews to wave vegetation when they could be encouraging FFBs to be friendlier, more honest etc."


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Impeach Scalia

...the fear of them rattled us (heershee-oo) / their sign made things hard for us(?) (heekeesh-oo)                                                                                                                                                      ----Tisha B'Av Kina

[As the gloss explains, "their sign" is the cross Crusaders attached to their clothing and flags.]

Like most of the universe, I'm astounded to learn that a Supreme Court Justice believes that a cross is a suitable and appropriate memorial for non-Christians. Here's the highlight from yesterday's oral arguments on Buono v. Salazar as reported by that Hebe from Slate, Dalia Lithwik:

Justice Antonin Scalia...  looks particularly queasy when Peter Eliasberg—the ACLU lawyer whose client objects to crosses on government land—suggests partway through the morning that perhaps a less controversial World War I memorial might consist of "a statue of a soldier which would honor all of the people who fought for America in World War I and not just the Christians."

"The cross doesn't honor non-Christians who fought in the war?" Scalia asks, stunned.

"A cross is the predominant symbol of Christianity, and it signifies that Jesus is the son of God and died to redeem mankind for our sins," replies Eliasberg, whose father and grandfather are both Jewish war veterans.

"It's erected as a war memorial!" replies Scalia. "I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. The cross is the most common symbol of … of … of the resting place of the dead."

Eliasberg dares to correct him: "The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians. I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew."

"I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead the cross honors are the Christian war dead," thunders Scalia. "I think that's an outrageous conclusion!"

The fact that this fat windbag thinks a cross is a suitable way to honor Jewish war dead is what's really outrageous. As for the issue under discussion, I don't mind that a cross was erected 80 years ago, and would be content to let it stay where it is for historical reasons. What I can't abide, however, is this jackdonkey judge's idea that the "The cross is the most common symbol of … of … of the resting place of the dead" or his inability to understand why, after 2000 years of Christian anti-Semitism, a Jew might not want to spend eternity resting under Chritianity's most beloved icon. See this for more on the story.

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A Sukkos Tale

A Guest Post By E. Fink

Inspired by CA's Pre-Kol Nidre Story

I had the privilege of attending a wonderful Sukkah party (some people are makpid to call these parties Simchas Beis Shoevas, I think "Party" is fine,) this week. There was a guest speaker, whom I respect and he told a well known story that I, and others found disturbing.

I will let you judge.

A poor family in Poland circa 1850 has no money for an Esrog. Man of house sees a really nice Esrog that he really wants. In order to pay for it he sells their one prized possession - the Tefillin of the Baal Shem Tov, her great-grandfather. He comes home with the Esrog and his wife is wondering where he got the money for the Esrog. She finds out that he sold her grandfather's tefillin. She yells "we live in poverty! I have asked you to gert a job! We agreed never to sell the tefillin and you selll them for this! And she grabs the Esrog and throws it violently to the ground. The Esrog is now possul. The man says to Hashem, "I lost my Esrog, I lost my wife's grandfather's tefillin, I will not lose my Shalom Bayis too". And he does not get upset at his wife.

The story was used to teach that Sukkos is about peace, harmony and unity.

The people behind us were very upset by the story. He told his wife, "I do not agree with this story at all. I don't even want to talk about it!"

The (not Frum) woman next to my wife was equally perturbed by two things. She said "doesn't the Kesubah say the man has to provide for his family? And of course he didn't 'say anything back to his wife' - he was completely in the wrong!"

Yes, this story sounds awfully like the Ushpizin movie from a few years back. This Rabbi did not see that movie. But as my wife told the woman next to her - personally, I did not advocate seeing the movie as it seemed to have a similarly ridiculous lesson (at least according to IMDB).

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Family Goy

I missed that episode of Family Guy everyone says would have done Goebbels proud, but am watching it now on HULU. Anyone have a point of view?

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What Does A Sukkah Mean To You?

A Guest Post By E. Fink

The NY Times Blog has a post about the Chabad Sukkah in Bryant Park.

Law Students, Lawyers and fans of Legal Dramas will love the (old and tired) issue that is raised by the post. Do religious symbols have a place on public property?

But according to Rabbi Metzger, the Sukkah is not a religious symbol. Rather, a "Sukkah is a symbol of universal good will and good cheer".

That is the first I heard of that symbolism with regard to a Sukkah. Last I checked the Torah itself tells us the symbolism of the Sukkah. "L'maan yeid'u doroseichem ki basukkos hoshavti es Bnei Yisrael." "In order that your [subsequent] generations should know that I sheltered The Sons on Israel in huts".

Good will? Good cheer?

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No tie guys

Aside from negative people who delight in always finding new things to complain about, the other thing I really dislike is people who show up at shul with their ties undone. Every shul I've been in has at least one guy who appears at Saturday afternoon mincha with his tie hanging around his neck. For reasons known only to himself, he prefers to knot his tie while standing in the middle of a room full of people.

His reason? Your guess is as good as mine.


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Stuff you always wanted to know about my Sukka that Tzipoorah wasn't afraid to ask

Our good friend Tzipporah sent me the following set of unsolicted sukka questions last week:

What part do you play in the annual hut-fest? Builder? Helper? Decorator? or just dweller? I build the thing every year. Its a big job, too.  For reasons I won't disclose it takes me and two helpers about 5 hours to take it out of storage, drag it to the deck/patio/porch and put it up. In the old days, I did it alone, and 7 hours of work (over three days) wasn't unsual. The kids decorate. My wife cooks. (Don't cluck your tounges disaprovingly: She rocks at it, and enjoys cooking the way you feminists enjoy not shaving your legs.)

What's your favorite part of the holiday? The drinking. A fine burbon in a chilly sukka is one of my most favorite things.  I also like the soups. The wife does a different one each night. This year we had mushroon barley on the first night, and hamburger/vegetable on the second. I should also say that I like Hallel, and Birchas Kohanim, though neither are unique to sukkos. Hoshana Rabba done right (by which I mean "the way I like it") is also a small pleasure. If the right mixture of men, liquor and music/conversation is present the Simchas Bes Hashoeva, traditionaly held on the second night, can also be wonderful.

Least favorite? Building the sukka (see above). I also loath and despise sfard style nah-nuim, which are done in a fasion that strikes me as disorganized and contrary to the communal spirit of the hallel. Also, Sefardim don't use that neat, haunted, old-sounding chant for Hodu. Another thing I hate is this bogus idea that the arba minim have "spiritual" qualities, and that they are used "like an attenna" to (mixed metaphor alert) "soak up spiritual energies."  This is another of those meangingless sentences Jews use to let you know they haven't thought the matter through.  

Decoration preferences? (Homemade kids' art, fancy/elegant sukkah, tacky plastic crap? Do you guys change it up every year or do more or less the same look every year?) The dominant decorative theme is Stuff the Kids Made. We keep things they've made from year to year, so currently identical first grade projects hang side by side on the North Wall (the kids all had the same teacher, so they all made the same thing.) In past years, we've used the tacky plastic crap, too, though this year we've finally made a move to spruce things up a little. The motiff this year is Stuff the Kids Made with Tacky Crap We Like and (this the new bit) Fall Foilage.

Anything else you want to know? Send me an email.

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Chicago does not get the Olympics

This, likely,  is because Chicago sucks: 1 and 2



UPDATE
When you think about it, Chicago's Olympic dream made no sense from the beginning. NY, let's recall, was rejected just four years ago, and as the comments make clear, NY is 20 times the city Chicago is. Chicago is this drab, boring, little Midwest cow town. Its barely the most interesting city in its region, whereas Rio is the best city, arguably, in that whole hemisphere. Moreover, North America has had the Summer Olympics 5 times and the Winter Olympics 5 times, with a sixth (Vancouver 2010) already scheduled, while South America hasn't yet had it once.

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Who wrote the last 8 psukim of the Torah?

BRIEF INTRODUCTION: Last night I announced on Twitter that I planned to post today about the last 8 psukim, or verses, of  the Torah, and someone protested that this was not a way to bring people closer to God. How strange. The controversy over the last 8 psukim is discussed in the Babylonian Talmud in two separate places, and at least 4 Rishonim advance different ideas about the nature of the disagreement. What holy purpose might possibly be served by refusing to talk about it? I know the modern Torah True Truth is that Moshe wrote the whole Torah, and that the Torah we have today is a letter for letter match with the Torah he wrote, but its perfectly clear that Jewish giants in every era disagreed with this so-called truth. How does it serve the purpose of truth to pretend otherwise? Or, put another way how do lovers of truth justify their aggressive defense of a Torah True Truth that likely isn't true at all?

Deuteronomy 34:5 reads: "And Moses the servant of the LORD died there..." In BT Menochos, and BT Baba Basra an argument is recorded which is cited on Deut 34:5 by Rashi. According to Rabbi Yehuda, Moshe would not have written something false; therefore that verse, and the 7 the follow had to have been written by Joshua. According to Rabbi Meir, the whole Torah (per a proof text he provides) was written by Moshe; therefore these last 8 verses were written by Moshe, but b'dima through tears, or while crying.

As noted by the rishonim, Rabbi Meir's solution doesn't really solve the problem, or address Rabbi Yehuda's complaint. Written "through tears" or not, the words still are not true. Many clever explanations are provided, three of which I'll attempt to reproduce below:

Rama: Moshe wrote the last 8 verses not through his tears, but with his tears. Because that sort of writing isn't permanent, its not really a lie, but because it is a form of writing, it can still be said that Moshe wrote the whole book. After Moshe's death, Yehoshua copied over the tear stains with ink.

Gur Aryeh: Moshe's crying marked the beginning of his death, so the words he wrote weren't false.

Vilna Gaon (Kol Eliyahu): The Torah existed before creation, but in a strange format: All the letters were connected, with no word or line breaks. (heresanexampleofthatsortofwriting) Only after the events happened, did the words form as we have them today. Theoretically, if things had turned out differently, the words would have separated differently. Until the very end, Moshe had the revealed version of the text, but the last 8 verses were given to him in the pre-creation format. He wrote them down, but didn't know what they meant. Only after his death, did Joshua put the letters into their formal form. This, continues, the Vilna Gaon, is what Rabbi Meir meant by b'dima, which puns with midoomeh and can mean "mixed up."

It's important to note that there's another Rishon who openly disagreed with both Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda. In his comment to Deut 34:1, Avraham ibn Ezra says plainly that its his belief that the last 12 verses, beginning from "And Moses went up from the plains of Moab", were written by Joshua. Though his position contradicts Chazal, he's not attacked for it by the Ramban, which may suggest the Ramban's agreement.

Ibn Ezra does not give a reason for his position, but I think common sense is on his side: Once Moshe left the camp to ascend Har Nevo no one saw him again and, per Deut 34:6, no one even knew where he went. So, if he wrote it, how could the account of his death have ended up in our hands? Moshe went to Nevo alone.


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A shiur by Rabbi Sholom Rosner that can be found on the YU website is my source for the three interps for Moshe's tears.

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The less than permanent Sukkot in the West Bank

A guest post by OJ

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/133490

"Members of the Land of Israel Faithful movement have come up with a new way to fight a proposed building freeze in Judea and Samaria. The movement is asking residents of the area to build the traditional temporary Sukkot dwellings – and to leave them up long after the holiday is over."

From a religious point of view, this is a little strange as a sukkah is not supposed to be a permanent structure. It is supposed to be built with the holiday of Sukkot in mind. According to the lenient opinion, a permanent structure can be turned into a sukkah fit for the holiday if its roof is partly loosened and refastened (assuming it meets the structural requirements). Nonetheless, it would seem to me that building something for the holiday with the intention of making it a permanent structure would be to create it with the intent to decrease its sanctity, which I find troubling.

If these settlers should 'leave their sukkot up' after the holiday and the government comes in and destroys them as illegal construction, would they be destroying a sukkah or just a building? What are the implications of that?

Your thoughts?


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What are the Arba Minim for?

Here's an interesting bit of speculation about the meaning of Nehemia 8:12-18.  These verse seem to giive an unconventional interpretation of Leviticus 23:40, suggesting that in Nehemia's days people built their sukkot from the Arba Minin. Here's the passage:

And they found written in the Torah that YHWH commanded through Moses that the Children of Israel dwell in Booths (Succoth) in the Seventh month. And concerning that which they heard [in the public reading] they passed a voice through all their cities and Jerusalem saying 'Go out to the mountain and bring olive branches and oil tree branches and myrtle branches and date branches and branches of thick trees to make booths, as it is written. And the people went out and they brought and they made for themselves booths, each man on his roof and in their courtyards and in the courtyard of the House of God and in the broad areas of the Water Gate and the broad areas of Ephraim Gate."

Though this seems strange to us, using the Arba Minim as a building material is actually a reasonable interpretation of Leviticus 23:40, the verse which tells us to "take" the Arba Minin. It seems indisputable that this is what Nehemia describes. Interestingly, the esrog is not mentioned in Nehemia; instead the people apparently used olives to meet the requirement of bringing a fruit from an Etz Hadar or "majestic" tree.

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