Ezzie: Being from Cleveland sucks.DGEsq left early, not wanting to see the end. A true Clevelander, I felt compelled to watch until 0:00. Of course, that meant I got to see the latest montage of horrible moments, which was probably recycled, because they left out the 1989 AFC Championship but more surprisingly the Red Sox comeback from 3-1 to beat the Indians in the 2007 ALCS.
G: Amen.
There will be a MAJOR, BLOW OUT suit sale in the gym of Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim (RSA) in KGH. Located at 76-01 147th Street.The sale will take place:THIS Sunday - 5/24 from 10am to 10pm ANDTHIS Monday - 5/25 from 10am to 10pmThe UPDATED liquidation prices are:MENS 100% WOOL SUITS - 1 for $60 or 3 for $150! (same size)MENS 100% WOOL ITALIAN SUITS - 1 for $90 or 3 for $225! (same size)BOYS HART SCHAFFNER MARX SUITS - $50ALL MENS SHIRTS - $15MENS DESIGNER TIES - $10BOYS SHABBOS SHIRTS - $7MENS FLORSHEIM LEATHER SHOES - 1 for $35, 2 for $60 (same size)Come on down and take advantage of these SUPER BLOW OUT prices!!! Tell your family, neighbors and friends!!!
Have a wonderful Shabbos, everyone!
- G6 has the video of her son Joey on Who Wants to be a Millionaire - a nice kiddush Hashem, I must say. Seems like a really great guy.
- While I was reading a piece about the latest "American Girl" doll being a Jewish one, I stumbled on this interesting piece about an Israeli woman who won an Arabic literary prize. Impressive.
- (via Jack) Apparently, ABC goes to J-bloggers to get opinions on news stories, like this one about the first black female Rabbi in the US. It quotes R' Gil Student and Shlomah Shamos of VIN.
- BaltimoreJewish discusses ParnasaFest, coming very soon in Baltimore.
- Google is using an algorithm to figure out which of its employees might quit.
- New York has the worst drivers. Who knew!?
- The pic at right of the Milky Way is a tiny version of a beautiful one. Jack has the link to the full thing - wow.
- An absolutely wonderful piece on Cleveland and the Cavs in this week's Sports Illustrated by Joe Posnanski. Opening line:
What are two things you will never see in Cleveland?
A victory parade and the sky.
Some users are seeing an 'Operation Aborted' error message when trying to load their blogs from Internet Explorer. We're looking into this and will update this message when we have a fix.That's what I saw when I switched to IE. Hopefully when they figure it out, things will be okay.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
This Israeli city has a street named for Spinoza:This week's question is up to the right.
Votes so far: 23
We are looking into hosting a Saturday night singles event sometime in August. We would love to get input from all of you about dos and don'ts for such an event. We have been told to have a "program" and that stuffing guys and girls and snacks in a room will not yield results. We thought of doing something where you have x guys and equal number of girls at each table with questions/conversation starters in the center. As in speed dating, you get a certain amount of time to talk and then at the sound of the bell, the girls get up and switch (to separate) tables and a new group sits down. By doing it in small groups, you are more likely to meet everyone (we are thinking of capping it at 25 of each gender). If you do speed dating, you probably won't come in contact with everyone. Our concern is that the quieter/introvert will not speak up...What is a good amount of time to run such a program? 2-1/2 hours?We are contemplating having it at #####'s house (whose husband is a pulpit Rabbi). On the one hand it is more intimate, on the other will people be weirded out having it at a Rabbi's house? The other choice is hosting it in a shul? Comments? Pros/cons?What kinds of questions can we ask (not to be shared with participants) and what is considered off limits?How young is too young to invite to such an event?
We want people to look at it as a "this is a great way to meet people" event and we will market it as such.Thanks for your insights!
Credit Cards *When you break out the answers by number of children, you get the following percentages.
Do you have credit card debt?
- Yes
- No
- Only monthly expenses but I pay them off in full each month.
(0, 1, 2, 3, 4*, 5+ kids)What seems to happen is that as people get to the stage of life where they have two kids, they start to use credit cards more - but try to be careful to pay them off in full. As they have more kids, however, this becomes increasingly difficult, and they slowly slide into spiraling credit card debt.
- No: 38.1%, 32.7%, 25.0%, 18.0%, 20.0%, 17.3%
- Monthly: 36.4%, 38.8%, 51.6%, 38.0%, 42.9%, 28.8%
- Yes: 25.4%, 28.6%, 23.4%, 44.0%, 37.1%, 53.8%
- Save money on car insurance by taking a safe driving course - online. Not sure if this is wise or not by the State of New York, but I'll take advantage.
- G6's son will be on Millionaire today and tomorrow!
- The Cavs are on the cover of Sports Illustrated. {cringe}
- A beautiful shot of MOChassid worth well more than 1,000 words. Congratulations!!
- ProfK sums up what kills me about the kashrus world: Politics. What's sad is that at some point, it's clear that so many people are relying on "what they heard" about an organization, which makes it seem that the kashrus of an item is more dependent on which side got negative word out faster than the other.
- Adventures in Chinuch with a good post about accusations of psychological abuse in education - and how they're not something that should just be thrown around. There's a difference between a personality clash or ineffective teaching with some students and abuse.
- I'd rather be dominant than exciting if I'm the Cavs.
- (Hat tip: JA) Great discussion on LeBron and Kobe.
- Speaking of them, here's their second muppet commercial.
Moshe is going to love this story, which will certainly make you smile. A banker noticed a mother duck and her twelve ducklings stuck on a second floor balcony, and knew that the mother duck would call the ducklings to follow her to water - except the ground below was cement, and the jump would not be a good one for them. See how he saved them (and led them to water!).At least there's still Coke.
- A cool story (audio) about how Coke became Kosher - a tricky proposition, considering how secret the formula is.
- The Hamodia piece Little Sheep mentioned yesterday is online here (thanks Stam), though the link will probably die soon. It also seems to be a short version of a longer piece.
- Now, here's one example of where your stimulus money (formerly known as your money, until you paid it to the government in taxes) is going: An airport that serves 20 people a day. Nice.
- Or, if that isn't enough for you, how about billions to punt on distressed loans to foreign borrowers?
What the heck is Merrill Lynch doing giving $500 million to some guy, no doubt with a 10% deal, to punt on distressed loans? And not merely distressed loans, distressed loans to foreign borrowers! How does this fit with the goals of the TARP? Wasn't the idea to stabilize the banking system, thereby protecting depositors and other creditors, and making sure credit would continue to be available for US households and corporates. How does it possibly serve a public purpose to have taxpayer money gambled on foreign loans by a guy on a deal?- See, taxes used to be bad enough because of this:
Now it's (Your Paycheck/(Roads + Wars + Schools + Stupid, Idiotic Investments))^Bureaucracy.
- One difference between a tax cutting approach and a tax raising approach is that the former is a short-term hit for long-term gains. The latter makes things better for a short time... and then horribly worse in the long run. Note that the estimates below are from the White House and the CBO (non-partisan).
- Even those might be generous, considering the real cost of health care, especially as the Obama administration pushes to switch everyone over to a system like Medicare - Medicare, the failed attempt of government to help in the health care industry that is projected to be bankrupt within 5 years, or about 10 times as fast as Social Security. It's expected to explode from 5% of GDP to 20%, according to the Obama administration.
- An interesting piece in the Forward on the battle against eating disorders and the like in the Orthodox Jewish community, talking a little about Renfrew and the OU-sponsored upcoming day-long conference featuring their documentary "Hungry to be Heard".
- A father calls for his son's suicide to be an appeal for awareness regarding mental illnesses.
- An xckd titled "Helping" that serves as a good reminder to help people find professional help:
Gotta love it. Read the whole thing.Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.
Did the greater prosperity in low-tax states happen by chance? Is it coincidence that the two highest tax-rate states in the nation, California and New York, have the biggest fiscal holes to repair? No. Dozens of academic studies -- old and new -- have found clear and irrefutable statistical evidence that high state and local taxes repel jobs and businesses.
...Some have suggested that, in the Orthodox world, we simply do not believe in romance, as real love supposedly happens only after marriage. While in many ways this is true, we are often left without defining just what that means. [...] Unfortunately, there have been some changes to the system in recent years that have led to rising stress in a process that should contain both fun and excitement despite the seriousness of the goal.He then goes on to talk about just how it all works, and emphasizes that The natural process of romance develops in stages beginning with learning how to socialize and proceeding from there. Let us allow young adults to find one another so they might develop the friendship so necessary to a successful marriage.Increasingly, in virtually all shades of orthodoxy, both men and women are segregated from one another even when it is unwarranted. This separation has led to a fear of socializing, a form of stage fright or anticipatory anxiety that causes young daters to not know how to act in a socially acceptable fashion with one another. I hear them talking about the “magic” of the opposite sex as if it were a truism, a fact that in order to understand how to even talk with one another they must unravel a secret magical code. While there should be magic, it is not of this type.
Even after marriage there is often a dearth of appropriate communication between the spouses. [...] more and more young marrieds are divorcing with the primary complaint that they simply did not know each other at the time of marriage and do not understand one another once married. [...]
When we add to this mix the volatility that comes from being overindulged and overprotected well into the late teens and early twenties, we are left with young men and women who feel no need to even try to get to know anyone else. Many of our young men and women have placed themselves on a pedestal and want to marry someone who can keep them there, even in financially troubling times. The goal then is not a warm, affectionate, supportive relationship but a selfish, egocentric one. Who needs a romantic relationship with a spouse or even friendship with a spouse, as long as you get what you want?
There actually is somewhat of a scientific formula for the magic that causes the spark of romance. [...]
One day the U.N. Secretary General proposes that, in the interest of global peace and harmony, the world’s soccer players should come together and form one United Nations global soccer team.Sure, that's funny, but the rest isn't. Excerpt: (Note: I've watched this video. It's amazing in its brashness and straight-forwardness, and because of that, one of the scariest things I've seen. Hit expand to watch it.)
“Great idea,” says his deputy. “Er, but who would we play?”
“Israel, of course.”
One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, a group wearing “BOYCOTT ISRAEL” T-shirts entered a French branch of Carrefour, the world’s largest supermarket chain, and announced themselves. They then systematically advanced down every aisle examining every product, seizing all the items made in Israel and piling them into carts to take away and destroy. Judging from the video they made, the protesters were mostly Muslim immigrants and a few French leftists. But more relevant was the passivity of everyone else in the store, both staff and shoppers, all of whom stood idly by as private property was ransacked and smashed, and many of whom when invited to comment expressed support for the destruction. “South Africa started to shake once all countries started to boycott their products,” one elderly lady customer said. “So what you’re doing, I find it good.”
Is the motive of those who currently oppose Kollel, utilizing the Rambam as their model, that they just can’t bear that people are taking money for its study? Such an attitude can, virtually by definition, only come from someone who is exceedingly meticulous not to waste a spare moment available for Torah study. I think it safe to surmise that the percentage of people in this category, who did not spend at least a portion of their married life learning in Kollel, is infinitesimal.Let me add to that something I touched on during my presentation: The problem is not kollel. My brother is 34 years old and still learning - married, 4th kid on the way iyH. He also has zero dollars in debt, and doesn't take any tzedakah. One of the most interesting comments both people I spoke to from Mesila said was that as they discussed opening up in Lakewood, someone argued that they can't come into Lakewood and tell guys who are making $30k between their wives' jobs and their kollel checks that they aren't making enough to support their lifestyles: You'd be basically telling them to leave kollel and get a job, and that simply wouldn't fly there. They responded simply that those people are missing the point: The problem isn't learning, it's people who earn $30,000 spending $70,000 - and it's the exact same problem as someone who makes $150,000 and spends $300,000. If you show people that they simply need to understand their finances and live within their means, those who truly wish to learn will find a way to do so on less money - much like my brother has done. Those who are there merely to live an easy life will likely leave and start working, which is better for everyone.
?! More likely, those who oppose Kollel oppose it on the grounds that many of the people who are taking the money are NOT reluctant to "take the money". Moreover, they likely oppose Kollel on the grounds that it IS an imposition on the public.
To create a false choice of "opposition must come from someone meticulous not to waste a spare moment" to learn and then make another gross assumption that such people are few and far between is disgusting.
The undercurrent of the ideological gripe against Kollel is invariably the placing of the burden on the community to support it - and yet the Rambam writes that if the multitudes were asked at the time of the Tannaim to support Torah they would have gladly showered the Talmidei Chachamim with the greatest wealth!
This is also a horrible argument. There's a far cry from a poor man clearly dedicated to his learning not asking for anything, who, if he did ask, people would have no qualms giving versus a lifestyle which asks for the money upfront to live a rather comfortable lifestyle. Moreover, those same people back then - despite their complete trust that the poor man was in fact learning seriously - did NOT give the money anyway!
Based on the Rambam himself, in light of the consensus among the Halachic decisors from the time of Rambam and on, one would expect that there would be a communal sigh of relief, that we are able to fulfill our most fervent wish which is to increase Torah study and need not be concerned about the problem of the Kollel learners accepting funds, since Kollel has become universally accepted as legitimate.
This is just silly.
Has any one of those saying it is a burden recommended pro bono investment on behalf of the learners (they do often have wedding money!), which the Rambam (Avos ibid.) considers meritorious? Have they agreed to pay taxes on their behalf, which is obligatory for people engaged in full time Torah study?
Why don't they use that wedding money to cover their bills? Wedding money is not worth risking on short-term investments usually. What taxes, exactly?
It is meant to underscore the idea that we must sometimes examine what lies at the root of opposition to a particular system of widespread Torah study, and be certain that it does not stem from begrudging accomplishments of others.
...and we must be extremely careful when doing so to not only understand that not only does it serve nobody to make up or focus on negative arguments which serve no purpose, but to address the primary issues which are legitimate reasons to oppose. Nowhere does R' Beckerman address any of the legitimate reasons people are opposed to kollel, merely dismissing it as something people can place in the comments. He only not-so-subtly hints that those who are against kollel are "begrudging accomplishments", should "breathe a communal sigh of relief" that nobody looks twice at people taking money for being in Kollel, or should be coming up with more ways of handling their financial responsibilities.
Perhaps it is not "begrudging accomplishments" which upsets those who are against kollel, but the actual facts on the ground. What does not help, however, is the seeming attitude of those who are for kollel that implies that not only is what exists now wonderful - while ignoring and dismissing its drawbacks - but that everyone else should be doing even more to make it easier on them.
Enjoy!
- A mostly great memo from the RCA on Hirhurim discussing some things that must change within the Orthodox community, from institutional transparency (finally!) to cutting down on spending on the one side to actively opposing charter schools and calling on people to give more money, even if their kids are not in school.
- A Soldier's Mother with a moving piece on the gift of life the family of a soldier accidentally killed gave to the soldier whose gun went off, and with an added story that is also beautiful in its own way.
- via Freakonomics, a Boston Globe piece on the science and valuation of happiness. Personally, the idea that people can adapt to horrible situations and be happy does not devalue the loss they've suffered but merely shows us the ability of people to overcome struggles. That people show more irritation with small things seems to be more simply because we don't look at them as things we need to overcome.
- Mystical Paths with a funny/sad comic and a cute/sad video that make you go Hmmm.
Enjoy!
- Adventures in Chinuch discusses how the year in Israel can often severely damage a person's future, due to the encouragement of Rebbeim to take certain (worse) paths.
- On a similar note, ADDeRabbi discusses having a conversation with his former self (or at least a young KBY guy who reminds him of himself at that age). Very interesting to ponder.
- A New York Times piece on black hats. (Really.)
- ...and a NYPost piece on a Brooklyn gas station that serves food at its Heimishe Coffee Shop. Like... chulent. [Too easy to make that joke.]
- Cool piece in the New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell (Tipping Point, Blink) on how Davids beat Goliaths - by changing the game being played. Personally I think it has serious limits: At some point, Goliaths will simply either play the same game right back (and better) or they will use their power to assert their style. (Think of how the surge in Iraq broke down terror.)
- Another cool piece in the Wall Street Journal on how entourages are now much more business than lazy punks. Fascinating, really.
- Interesting NBC piece on the "Jewish Jordan", Tamir Goodman, 10 years later. Nice kiddush Hashem.
- Hirhurim links to a candid interview with R' Dr. Norman Lamm, where he (almost) says kaddish on Conservative and Reform Jewry. (On the flip side, when I saw that I immediately thought of Rabbeim who have done the same on what they see as the failure of Modern Orthodoxy.)
- And in case you've never seen this (you're probably female), girls are in fact evil. {Insert women and math joke here.}
Chase is being awfully nice to their customers in tough economic times. Many of their customers received statements this month with a minimum payment of $0, even though they have balances. How nice! Customers take a month off, Chase will just let finance charges accrue for them.Now, what would you do if you got a bill that said you owed $0 this month? Odds are, you'd say "Great!" and throw it in the trash, not paying a cent. You'd be happy, and Chase would be even happier: You'd accrue finance charges on the money you still owe. If you owed $2,000 at 18%, you'd accrue about $30 in finance charges.
Memphis II's status: Sometimes there's just too much month left at the end of the money.
Me: You should have come to my presentation. :)
MII: I knew you'd like that one. :)
Cleaning lady: {looking around} I can't remember what I'm looking for...!
Me: Oh yeah, happens all the time. Then you see the thing and are like "Oh, that's what I was looking for!"
CL: {looks up, sees it, shakes her head}
Me: Found it?
CL: Yup. [pause] I stopped drinking because I thought it was affecting my memory, but it's still just as bad. I'm going to start drinking again.
Elianna (3): Can I have lipstick?
Serach: Sorry, it's Shabbos, and it's muktzah. You can't have any.
Elianna: Who made it muktzah?
Serach: Hashem.
Elianna {looks skyward}: Hashem, can I have lipstick? I really want lipstick...!
I wanted to make you all aware of a wonderful organization that is working diligently to place professionals who have recently been laid off, and are looking for work. “Emergency Parnossa Initiative” is a non-profit organization that was created to address the needs of our local community in these difficult times. In the past two weeks alone they have been successful in placing a number of professionals in six figure jobs.I took the liberty to attach a brief description of their services. Please take a minute to read it.Most importantly, if you know of any job openings available, or if you are looking to hire, please contact them either via email at jobs@epinetworking.org or call them at 212.612.0202. (They are offering a $1,000 reward to anyone who refers a job that leads to permanent employment).If you or someone you know has recently been laid off and is looking for work, please contact EPI today.Please forward this email to all your contacts.
I'll write more about the actual presentation later or next week, once I have a chance to go through some of the audio and video.
- Huge thanks to: Tamar Snyder and Pazit, which women should join up forces with, Mt. Sinai for hosting and Shlomo B. for helping set up.
- Crowd was really great. The room was full (50-60 people someone said), the people were really interested, and they asked numerous good questions in the Q&A following the presentation. A couple people knew more about certain subjects/aspects than I did, such as Canadian information (in response to a question about international responses).
- As my own not-so-harshest critic, I'd give myself a B+ as a presenter; really a B, but as a first-time presenter it would be A-, so B+ works. :) One of the most interesting things when you're speaking in front of an audience is the intense awareness you have of all the things you're doing wrong: "Um"s, "okay"s, long pauses as you find yourself (which are better than trying to babble your way out of a hole), trying to babble your way out of a hole anyway, standing with your back toward part of the audience for too long when showing a slide, etc. That said, none of those were too horrible, certainly for a first time, and as it got going it calmed down. [continued this morning] Lessons learned (including that I need a printer so I can practice while viewing the slides, since I prefer speaking more off-the-cuff; over-preparing hurts, in that you end up being more rote for parts you've essentially memorized and try to "get back" to what's on the paper instead of just telling what you want to tell; etc.).
- Being interviewed (by TJC) was oddly comfortable.
Just as a reminder, tonight I'll be giving the first presentation about the Jewish Economics Survey: [take it here]Playing - and Praying - in the Black, But Living in the RED
...just how much does being an Orthodox Jew cost?
"You're ready with more than a day left? What's that like?!Honestly, it's odd. While it's nice that that pressure of preparing is off, and I don't have to worry about that, I'm the type that actually thrives off the pressure. I enjoy being given more difficult or time-impossible tasks, then coming up with ways to pull them off anyway. That said, I now have over a day to drive myself crazy about it. Ah well.
I thought these were especially interesting. The first one is one heard many times, but the number is scary: Take-home pay less than tuition alone? But it's pretty understandable: Even a couple earning $100,000 is only taking home about half that if they work in Manhattan. Sadly, $50,000 might not cover tuition for more than 3 kids.
- Great idea. The current system is broken. There are years when my wife and my take-home pay is less than our combined tuitions for just 4 children. Yeshivas and girls schools are teaching the children that it is wrong for a young married man to earn any money at all until several years into the marriage, yet yeshiva and girls' school tuitions are astronomical. This paradigm cannot survive for another generation given the recent economic meltdown.
- Go to public college, not private!!
- Move to Eretz Yisroel before having children or when they are very young, where all types of Jewish education is MUCH more affordable than in the U.S.A. (I would not recommend moving with adolescent children.)
- do not buy what you can't pay for right now. practice delayed gratification
- save, save, save. forget what everyone else is doing or what you did when you were single. stop spending money.
Coming to this country is a privilege. If you can't live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded.Don't get me wrong. I understand entering a country is a privilege. I agree to that. I also believe any country has a RIGHT to keep anyone it wants out. The issue I have is not about rights, but about the moral slippery slope that this brings. Is the UK gov't going to start screening people on what their ideologies and values are before they can enter the country? Who gets to determine which speech and "values" will be allowed? There is a difference between letting terrorist in and people you disagree with their views.
I thought the average utility costs per month by residence size was interesting:
- Over 75% of those who have a car own it outright. That's pretty good, I think.
- About half the respondents have two cars. About 10% don't own a car.
- About 34% have 4 bedrooms or more.
- 19.7% of the respondents are 40 and up. 34.8% are in their thirties.
- Over 15% are single.
- While 87% of married couples outside of NY/NJ (which includes West Hempstead, Monsey, and Highland Park for the sake of characterization) are members of a shul, just 72% of those within NY/NJ (which does not include those areas) are members.
- On the flip side, singles within NY/NJ are more likely to be members of a shul by a 63-56% margin.
Actually, as I was writing that I decided to include it. I thought the next comment was interesting, as it was somewhat opposed to earlier comments by many suggesting people shoot for higher education due to the higher salaries they bring in in the long run; this respondent felt advice to young people should include the following:While certainly, all else being equal, people are better off in houses, it's imperative that people who are looking to own instead of rent be well aware of the uptick in their other expenses, from property taxes and home repairs to utilities. For example, a family in Queens who rents a 2-bedroom apartment pays about $121/month in utilities; if they want to buy a 3-bedroom house* in Queens, their utilities almost quadruple to $475/month.
- 1-bedroom apt.: $95
- 2-bedroom apt.: $126
- 3-bedroom apt.: $255
- 3-bedroom house: $371
- 4-bedroom house: $475
- 5-bedroom house: $561
- 6-bedroom house: $626
* smallish sample, but the numbers are mostly consistent
Improper preparation of young people to be productive wage earners. Tell people about CLEPs, self study, industry certifications, etc. College degrees can be had in 2 years, not 4. One can earn a living as a CFA, MSCE, A+, Actuary, etc. with minimal college.Finally, a really cool idea from a family in Lakewood:
Something we do it put all our coins into a big pretzel container at the end of the day (we don't spend coins) and that usually gives us $1,200 - $1,500 a year (no pennies). This way we can afford to go on a one or two vacation, overnight with the kids in the summerThat's a pretty clever way of doing things, and really lets you appreciate just how much small coins add up to - let alone putting aside a couple hundred dollars a month or so. On the flip side, this makes me nervous just to read, in response to the questions about debt:
We usually get "off the book" jobs here and there and are able to cover the credit card debt around August-September each year. Our credit card debt is only on credit cards with 0% interest and no fees.While the 0% interest/no fees is great, this family (of five) is essentially living on a wing and a prayer. Not only are their jobs "off the books", which [forgetting that issue in and of itself] means that they could easily not get paid or something could go wrong. It also means the income is not steady, cannot be relied upon (especially in a year like this), and if they suddenly can't make a payment on those credit cards, they'll get nailed with fees and their interest rates will shoot up.
Smassi (6) : Am I going to get a mitzvah note for what I did?And another one from last week, after our grandmother fell (she's doing well now in rehab):
Verv: No, you're expected to do that. You don't get a mitzvah note for that.
Smassi: Well, did I add another brick to the Bais HaMikdash?
Verv: Of course you did!
[a minute later] {Perfect (8) does something wrong}
Smassi: ...and now one just got taken out.
Verv: We're going to go visit (Great-)Grandma in the hospital.
Big E (almost 4) : Why!? Did she have a baby!?
Being holy, that's what it's all about. So why does G-d feel the need to command us specifically to be holy?Parshas Kedoshim: The Burden and Freedom of "Kedoshim T'hiyu"
