Schimmelism Of The Week LIV

R' Kahn: Think of it this way, on Yom Kippur you'll have stuff to say so you won't be bored.
Tonny: I'd rather be bored than have stuff to say, Rebbe.

A Boy Named....Stacey?

I haven't posted in awhile, but don't worry, BH I'm great.

The Hallmark channel has a new original movie coming out on Sunday; it's a western called Desolation Canyon, starring Stacey Keetch.

I don't care how manly he is, I mean, he is playing a cowboy and all, but seriously, his name is still Stacey.

Whazzup with that?

Schimmelism Of The Week LIII

Eitan: Why does this Chumash say 1st edition, 1997?
Papir: G-d couldn't get a publisher.

I Just Felt Like Posting Something Right Now

Ariela: i should have gone to yesodei
FonZThEIV: yeah, xcept that it wasnt around when you came to EY for the year...
FonZThEIV: oh well
Ariela: right thats really why i didnt go

Breakin' Out....?

I've been seeing a commercial for Dunkin Donuts the past few days. It goes, "what's better than having doughnut and coffee in the morning? Having it with the 1986 Mets this Friday!" And then it has 2 second clips of a few of the players from the '86 Mets, and the first one was Darryl Strawberry at bat.

Are they actually going to let him out of prison for that...?

Can't Think Of A Title

Hehe...

And For Next Year...

Alright, it's about time I tell y'all what I'm doing (like most of you don't know already?). I'll be starting the year at Yesodei HaTorah again for Elul. After Sukkos I'm going to a hesder yeshiva, Yeshivat Ohr Etziyyon in Merkaz Shapira, 15 - 20 outside of Ashqelon (the 437 Egged bus from Yerushalayim stop right in front of the yeshiva). And then in March, I'll be going into the Israeli army.

Crazy huh?

Schimmelism Of The Week LII

*After hearing about the Gay Pride parade on the news*

Peggy: Tonny, can we have a Hetoerosexual pride parade?

And I just love this line from Sir Winston Churchill (of course because prepositions you shouldn't end sentences with) :

This is a situation up with which I shall not put.

You're Not Jewish, Are You?

TV show Frasier (I didn't watch it or anything....). Scene: Frasier walks into a shiva house for someone he didn't know, wanting to find out something about the guy's death. His actions keep prompting the question, "You're not Jewish, are you?" from the family. At last he talks to the wife, who asks, "why did this happen?" He says he doesn't know, there is no good answer...

Frasier: We just have to concentrate on the little surprises in happinesses in life, and not concentrate on death."
Wife: You're not Jewish, are you?

As Rabbi Wolicki said in a shiur this year (Parashas Emor), you'd think that Judaism is all about death, right? I mean, look at the things that even non-religious people do: burial, shiva and aveilus (mourning), kaddish, yartzheit, and yizkor.
I don't remember the entire shiur, but basically, it went that no, pum fakhert (yiddush - just the opposite)! It's all about life! That's why we can't be tamei (impure) in the Beis HaMikdash (Temple). Why not? we can't have death on the mind. We have to be totally separated from it. Which is what kedusha (holiness) is: separating from stuff, even from things that are ok, as it says in [I think] the Gemara, "Qadeish atzmecha b'mutar lach--holify yourself in that which is permitted to you." Kohanim have to be qadosh, holy, separated from death, before they can serve HaShem, the Ultimate Lifegiver.
Death isn't even what it seems like if you think about what. What is death? Death is when our soul leaves our bodies, and goes to the next world, called Olam Haba, or, Olam HaEmes (World of Truth). We sit and take in the Glory of God. That's why we're here. We do everything, to try to get to that place, to just take in God's Glory. So, death isn't really bad at all, in fact it's better than living. I don't know about you, I would love to take in Glory from the Ultimate Goodness. That is to say of course, we shouldn't kill ourselves to hurry the process, but do as much as we can in this world, before we do that. So it's not even really dying, it's living PLUS.
But we still gotta separate from it.

(I think I gave over the main point correctly. If not, Rabbi, say something.)

Back In America

Yup, I'm back. Got home last night from the wedding. SOOO NICE.

Mazal tov Yehonatan and Malka! The wedding was soooo nice. You guys are so cute together, I can't wait to come to you guys for Shabbos.

I want pictures.

The Shevatim

You might rememer when I posted about the whole Dina-Sh'chem thing, I had said that I realized she was 6 when he raped her, and figured it out from just doing math. Well, I got a source. The Midrash in [Maseches] Sofrim, 21:9 says, "Dina was 6 years old when Sh'chem raped her." I think that's pretty concrete, right?

While flipping through the sefer I found this in (Ishei Tanach--it compiles all midrashim and gemaras about every person in tanach), I was looking up the shevatim, and with every single one, there is a medrash that states every shevet's birthday. Here's the list:

Reuven - 12 Kisleiv
Shim'on - 28 Teiveis
Levi - 16 Nissan
Yehuda - 15 Nissan
Dan - 9 Elul
Naftali - 5 Tishrei
Gad - 10 MarCheshvan
Asher - 20 Sh'vat
Yissa[s]char - 10 Av
Zevulun - 7 Tishrei
Yoseif - n/a
Binyamin - 11 MarCheshvan

Ok, so not all of them, I kind of forgot about Yoseif, I couldn't find his birthday. So that answers the question about the shevatim being born early.
There's a new book out (at least here) called The Shevatim, where it goes through all of them, goes through their brachos from Ya'akov and Moshe and compares them. In the beginning of them book, there's about a page and a half on each sheivet, and the first thing on each one, there's a grey box with the sheivet's Hebrew and English birthday (both date and year), and maybe other stuff. It looked cool, check it out.

I bet it has Yoseif's birthday...