Seudas Azkarah

Zsh: This better go in your blog.
Tonny: Duh.

Last night a lady came to the front door of the dorm, and says (in Ivrit, of course), "We're having a seudat azkarah, and we are inviting you." We're all like, "Free food! Free food! Damn straight!" So we went. It was at the big house across the street. If I'm correct, then their son was linched by arabs yemach shemam vezichram (may their name and memory be obliterated and erased), and last night was his yartzheit. It was awesome, the moshav is pretty much all Sfardi, and the whole moshav was there. It was really cool, and very Israeli, I loved it. I sat next to Zsh, with moshavniks all around. And 2 rabbi and one dude spoke (or 3 rabbis...? Not sure), and they did the het, and strong ayin, it was cool. And Qaddish was cool--not like I haven't heard it before, but it was cool. And just being there was great. Good food.
And last night once again I learned the daf with Rabbi W, and then I walked home with home. It was great, shmoozing with him again. Probably not the best idea, especially with my ankle...
And martial arts is cool. I'm taking it every Thursday during lunch. The dude, Avi, is like, dont care about anyone else looking at you, they might think it's corny, but so what? Yesterday, he was showing us that in a punch, you're ideally supposed to use the least amount of muscle as possible (I think I got this right), until the last moment when you stop, so the affect will be like when you touch something and a shockwave goes throughout the area. And he showed us....on me. I was the dummy today. First he showed with muscle, it hurt just a little bit, but the effect was that it pushed me back. Then he did the no muscle one....first he punched next to me to show how little muscle he ws using, and then, then he punched me. OH MY GOD. It was ridiculous, he knocked the wind out of me like holy mother. It took me like, 2 minutes to recover, then I was fine, but holy crack it was ridiculous. I hope I can get to that point....

Have an awesome Shabbos everybody.

Wednesday Nights In Yeshiva

Wednesday nights is our free nights, and tonight, pretty much everyone went into town tonight, except like, I don't know, 4 or 5 guys. Ari from Chi-town went to sleep at 7, and just woke up so he can stay up all night to watch the Yankee game (his parents are from NY, so it's ok everybody). So I'm on this computer, Mordy (shana bet) is on the other one, and his phone rings. He picks it up, and says, "Yeah, there are guys here...Yeah Tonny's right here, I'll ask him." He asks me if I wanted to go to R' Kahn's house to watch some tv?" I'm like YEAH BABY! So we went, Mordy, Max and I, took a cab to RBS to rebbe's house (he's my iyun shiur rebbe), shmoozed a little bit while waiting for the pizza to come, it came, we went downstairs, watched 2 episodes of Law & Order. It was awesome! One thing I miss from USA is tv. Not all of it, but like, M*A*S*H, L&O, etc. I told Abba and Peggy that the first thing I'm going to do when I come back to the States is, not say hi I missed you, eat or anything like that. I am going to watch M*A*S*H. I miss that show.
Hockey is back, BHYY. I'm in 2 fantasy hockey leagues (so far...). For fantasy leagues I alwasy pick for the computer to draft--autopick, so I don't have to sit here and whatever else. I got an email from Yahoo saying that my team is ready, so I went to check it out. I got to the league page, and it said, "your league is drafting, click here to join in." So I clicked, and there were 20 minutes left, I was like, dude, that's cool I guess. I tunred out, I had first pick--good and bad. Good because I was able to pick up Martin Brodeur, the best goalie in the world, and bad because the draft went round 1 was picks 1 - 12, then round 2 was 12 - 1, back and forth. Meaning I had picks 1, and then 24 and 25. It's cool to have 2 picks in a row, but, dude, 22 picks went on between my picks, which means that, no one else that was great was left for me to pick. In the end, my other 2 goalies are two backup goalies. *sigh* I'll think of something.
Oh, and R' Lichtman is awesome.
Laila tov vachalamot metukim y'all.

Schimmelism Of The Week XXIV

Tonny: internets back! weeeeeeeeee!
R' Lipman: bitul Torah back! boooooo!
Tonny: ouch that's harsh rabbi
R' Lipman: just kidding
R' Lipman: cause I am doing it too

BHYY!

The internet is back finally.

BHYY.

Word Games

Every day, except Tuesday we do bekiyos in Maseches Brachos. Today, we learned the Gemara about how a few of the rabbis were sick, so a rabbi went to visit them. They had a conversation, then the visitor said, "Hav li yadicha--give me your hand," and he did, and he got better.
So you know how Hebrew is like, awesome and each word is carefully picked by HaShem? I love that part of Judaism. It's where words that mean something, have the root word which is in essence related to that other word. I'm not explaining myself well at all, but you'll get it when I'm done.
One of my favorites of these word things is about "hav," actually. "Hav" means "give," like it did up there. What other word sounds like "hav" in Hebrew?



It is "ahava" which means "love." Love cannot happen without giving, constant constant giving. Unfortunately, some people don't realize this. I am NOT talking about anyone specifically, I promise, but in general, it happens sometimes, and it can really be bad for a relationship. For any relationship, not just a couple, people who are just friends, they have to give to each other, and while giving, they are also taking, because they are allowing the other person to give.

I love Hebrew.

I hope that made sense.

Schimmelism Of The Week XXIII

Rabbi: In REM, your muscles are paralyzed.
Appel: So how do you sleep walk?
Rabbi: We're not perfect, some sleep walk, some hit their wives.
Tonny: Oh yeah, I hit my wife all the time.

Family Branches and Leaves

I was at Pesh and Ken's for Shabbos, my aunt and uncle. Shabbos was nice, I had my new black hat finally, Tuviya was there, Ita and Rachel too, it was lots of fun. Rachel won Settlers of Catan.
Motza'ei Shabbos though, Ken showed me some stuff. He showed me the family tree he's been working on for a year or so, and the pictures from the Poland trip. It's amazing how much info he has on the family. He has gone back til saba great-grandparents, Savta's great-great-grandparents, and if some of his information is correct, then he can go back another 3 generations or so, for around 10 generations. Like, holy mother, he has information from the 1930 census, he has papers from a boat in 1911 that came from Austria, with Savta's mother on it. It's ridiculous. It was really cool though to see my family. My great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, etc. Saba's maternal grandfather's name was Shmuel Gesang. And Schwarzmer in Polish is spelled Szwarcmer, there's Avraham Szwarcmer, Mendel Szwarcmer, Alter Moshe Tzvi Szwarcmer. There's Pakulas, there's Gottfrieds, there's even a Koenigsberg. There's a Kohane, Saba's great-grandfather. Ken though, said we can't take anything at face value, because, as he said, all these records are Polish, so if these Jews only did this Jewish weding thing with some rabbi, they Poland wouldn't recognize it, and they gvet he kids the mother's last name. Therefore, when Pesh found an application Saba filled out for an id, it didn't say David Schwarzmer (or Szwarcmer), but it said David Gesang. BHYY Saba changed his name to Schwarzmer when he came here...even though Gesang means "to sing" in Yiddish (or thereabouts), and that's what our family was blessed by HaShem to do....to sing. And back to where we were, Pinchas Kohane's last name could be from his mother.
It got me thinking. When people die, they're remembered a little bit after, but after a while, we start forgetting them, their decendants aren't told about them. You think I knew about Alter Moshe Tzvi Szwarcmer? Pinchas Kohane? No. Not at all. I had no idea who they were. And Ken was able to tell me about Savta's mother's family. Her mother was a seceratary somewhere, I forgot what her mother did, but Kenny was able to find this out.
We can't forget about our past. We can't forget about our ancestors, where we came from, who we came from. Who knows, maybe you came from the Rambam, or the Vilna Goan? Or maybe you came from a simple person, but everyone liked him/her, and if you asked about them, you would be told they were unbelievable people. Who knows?

There is only one way to find out though...

Random Schimmelism

Rabbi Wolicki: If I were to make a box, would I be able to put the law of gravity in it?
Isaac: A whole law?

I know, right?

Child Sfornogrophy....oh Ari....

Ramblings Before Bed

Ok so apparently, Mo changed Nemo's name to Blinky.

I've gotten "shtarker"--learning Tehillim with Z, and Mas' Taanis with Mo.

The Crazy Cook in the Kitchen, Yehoshua, is freakin awesome.

I think I need to do laundry soon...

You have no idea what it's like to have R' Wolicki as a teacher again. Ah, Baruch HaShem Laila VaYom (Blessed is God night and day)...

Oh, and Rebbetzin Wolicki, I would like to know which post you commented on.

Oh, I probably should have told you before all this came out of my mouth--this post has no substance whatsoever.

Laila tov y'all.

Go Mets.

Squishy And Bobo

Well, Dani, here it is...

For those of you who don't know (although, most of you probably do), the Yeshiva has a bunch of cats in the area. Stray cats that are just here, you know? When we came, Rabbi W told us that the cats weren't there the entire summer, and they came back when we got there.
Anyway, Squishy and Bobo are fine, BH, they're doing well. Sometime this week Mo and I (well, just Mo and I was like, yeah, nice) named the little orange kitten with one eye, Nemo, because it's deformed just like Nemo. And the other kitten, the grey and white one, is named Dumbo. We haven't seen Paco--I mean Richard Nixon--or Sparky yet.

Yeshiva's going well. It's kind of funny, they're trying to get everyone used to this whole 3 hour morning seder thing, when, I am already being that I went to the PMOSE for the past 4 years. We're doing HaKoneis, perek 6 of Bava Qama for iyun shiur (in depth), and doing Brachos for beqiyus (not in depth...). And believe it or not, one of my madrichim is a shochet, so we're going to learn shechita together and iyH (God Willing) I will be getting my shechita certificate thing by the end of this year. We also have philosophy, on the 13 principles of faith of the Rambam. Then a Nach class, and 2 chumash classes, one with Rashi, the other with Ramban. And Wednesday nights--from 630 til 1200 we're free. Good stuff, I must say.

Last Friday was our Yerushalayim Tiyyul. We davened at the Kotel and had a tour of Ir Dovid (city of Dovid), like, where they think his palace was, the tunnels with the water, *claustrophobia* and all that. It was awesome. First time at the Kotel in like, 15 years. It was kind of hard to concentrate because there was a Sfardi minyan going on right behidn us, and they were going on doing there thing, yelling out "REVACH!" in Qaddish, etc. Then I went to the Qotel to like, touch it, that was cool. Davened for....yeah, between me and the Lord.

Dude, Yerushalayim is the Bomb.
Motzash a bunch of us wen to Y-m, to chill out. After walking around for a while, Z and I went tot he old city for a bit. I must say, it is awesome. Like, the Rova, the yeshivos around there, everything. I love it.

Plan for life: Get rich, and buy apartment on Rechov Ohr HaChayim in the Old City (or a house, but I don't think they have houses there...).

Laila tov vachalamot metukim y'all.

Schimmelism Of The Week XXII

Ari: You know what the Sforno's book for children is called? Child Sfornography.

Oh Baby

Been here for 6 days. Love it here. I love walking around and hearing Ivrit everywhere.
Other people are waiting for the computer, just thought I'd check in, to those of you who still read this.

Leavin' On A Jet Plane

Well, I'm leaving soon. My flight was SUPPOSED to leave at 730...but we just got told 5 minutes ago that it's delayed until 1145. Nice. Going to YU, hopefully to see some MTA/YU guys hopefully, eating at Revaya. If you want to see me before I leave, come to Revaya.
I assume that I will able to update in yeshiva I think, Dani did.
Thank you for everything everyone has done til now.

Yehi shalom becheileich, shalva b'arminosayich.

--Tehillim 122

Final Word

Let's end the discussion. THis was commented to me by Ari G on my lj:

"i think as long as you were suggesting it as a possible understanding, doesnt bother me so much.
I happen to feel it would be awfully unproductive as Midah Kneged Midah, bc why do the poor ppl of Biloxi, Miss have to learn from the Disengagement.
Then again, ppl wanted to say the same thing about the Tsunami.
Some would say it cheapens the tragedy, bc it makes it sound like unimportant lives that Hashem could just wash away to teach us a lesson.
And it doesn't sound like it makes so much sense to say Hashem punishes the other nations of the world simply for our mistakes.
However it does seem to me something slightly similar.
An idea that bc we, the Jewish ppl are in disarray it affects the entire world. The entire world is affected simply by the Jewish ppl.
I'm not being as articulate as I want to be about this point.
But the idea is that, since we aren't doing what we are supposed to be doing (in my opinion being Shomrei Torah & Mitzvos, and then some) it allows the world to be open to such unnatural disaster.
OK sorry to cut it short, but the Shabbos Queen is coming!!!
I can't wait to greet her. [sic]"

Yeah 6000 Hits!

Thanks to all you for making this possible. Keep 'em coming!

More On Kat

Here's a comment on Sarah B's blog:

"I sometimes think quietly to myself that the Katrina disaster was G-d's punishment on the United States for forcing Israel to abandon their land. Who knows..."

Interesting...

Finally

For once, the Israeli Government is actually doing something right.

Israeli Gov't Strives to Develop AIDS Vaccine
By Ezra HaLevi

Midah K'neged Midah

I am reading Arutz-7 now, and I had an eppiphany.

Whenever something bad happens, we always ask, how could HaShem do this? Well, I have a thought for Katrina.

Many people said that disengagement was assur (prohibited) from the Torah, yet it happened anyway. Maybe, HaShem decreed that Katrina should be midah k'neged midah (measure for measure) for the Disengagement, you made people leave their homes without reason, so I'm going to make people leave their homes.

What do you think? Comments...

(I obviously have no idea what The Lord is thinking, I'm just speculating...)

Not As Bad As Y'all Think

So recently it's been going around that because of all the steroids thing, and players being charged with crimes (Kobi Bryant, to name one), that we shouldn't look up to these players, we have to teach our kids not to have them as role models.

I beg to differ a little. We should tell them to watch carefully, and the ones that possess the good character traits, should be our role models--like Cal Ripken Jr, Mike Piazza (dude, he was drafted 61st in the 62nd of the draft, and now he is the greatest offensive catcher of all time, DON'T tell me there's nothing positive there), Tony Gwynn, etc.

Surprisingly, Shaq should be one of them.

I was watching ESPNews earlier tonight. They did a segment on Katrina, and about Tulane, and after that, said, "Shaq didn't go to Tulane, but he did go to LSU..." He went on to say that Shaq is going to the area to help out, and he'll be there until the end of the week, maybe even later.

Don't tell me we shouldn't have these players as role models.

Gabbai Pet Peeves

It's funny because I'm going to be gabbai at Yesodei this year...