Erachet & Jughead's Hat

Erachet Hat? I guess that'll be a slightly strange name.

Anyway, now that Jughead wrote about it, MAZEL TOV! to our really good friends Erachet and Jughead on their engagement! To give credit where it's due, Special Ed - you're the man, even if you had to dress like me to pull it off.

Meanwhile, the best reactions besides the consistent "it's about time!!"s* from pretty much everyone:

Serach (to Elianna): Are you so excited that Erachet and Jughead are getting married?!
Elianna (4-1/2): Yesss!!
Kayla (2-1/2): Me too!
Elianna: ...But I thought Erachet was going to marry someone else because Jughead is her friend.

* Interestingly, this is remarkably similar to the reaction of anyone who knew both when they started dating in the first place.

Kollel Guy Says Over a Vort...

...made you look - catchy title, no?

So once upon a time, a long time ago, on a blog not so far far away a certain blog "administrator" commented to certain blog "contributor" words to the following effect: Wouldn't it be great if one of us was actually learned enough to be able to throw around sources to back stuff up and/or to prove other stuff as being wrong?

Well hold on to your keyboards but after a career change into the wide wonderful world of Kollel about a year and a half ago I am here to tell you that (now brace yourselves)...that day has still not arrived.

HOWEVAH(!), due to a couple of recent posts below I thought that maybe it would be beneficial to post translations of a few sources that deal with the topic of Torah and Science/Nature. I figure at least that much I can confidently contribute.

This is in no way meant to be offensive or defensive in nature - simply something I thought might be of value to the overall topic.

Stay tuned...

Google as the Apocalypse

From Matzav.com, the best comment ever is comment 39

Being that the internet problem is so huge, perhaps it has been foretold by one of the prophets? And if so, could we glean any advice? Perhaps we can say that Gog, prince of Magog (Ezekiel 38&39), is none other than Google (stock symbol GOOG), prince of internet search?! ‘MaGog’ can translate to ‘WHAT are the results, GOOG?’ (‘ma’ meaning ‘what’ in English). Gog’s land is Magog, which means it thrives in googled cyberspace. As is known, this war of Gog is already well in progress and with tremendous casualties, may G-d save us.

Now, Google of course is not the only search engine, so ‘Gog’ is a general term (as in the term ‘googling’), but Google is (currently) the premier search engine, and is itself no angel, doing nothing really to prevent the problem, and in fact makes billions of dollars from ads on the dark side.
Gog is told: “Thus said the Lord Hashem/Elokim: It shall be on that day that ideas will arise in your heart, and you will conceive a wicked design. You will say, ‘I will advance against a land of open towns, I will come up against the tranquil people who dwell securely, all of them living without a [protective] wall; they have neither bars nor doors – to seize booty and take spoils…’” (Ezekiel 38:10-12, Stone edition). The ‘wicked design’ is the search engine. The ‘tranquil people’ are those without proper internet protection, and those that think they have it — but actually don’t. So the advice of the prophet is to get proper protection, not turn a blind eye.

As an aside, what about the destruction of Gog? When Mashiach comes, there will be lots of empty disk space and servers — apparently enough supply to satisfy demand for seven years: “Then the inhabitants of the cities of Israel will go out and kindle fires and fuel them with their weaponry… for seven years.” (ibid 39:9).

Hat tip to BD

Yeshiva Guy Says Over A Vort

I was not planning on posting this brilliant video by Krum as a Bagel, only because I hate putting up so many in a row, but I think just about everyone is linking to it on Facebook, so here it is in case you haven't seen it yet:



You know it's great when friends ask you on Shabbos if you've seen it yet and repeating all the lines from it.

Best lines:

(Friend's vote) "Did the Avos wear Crocs on Tisha B'Av?" "No - R' Elyashiv says Crocs are too comfortable. He wore Con-verse."

(My vote) "Did Yaakov [write a sefer Torah]?" "Of course." "So why didn't he just take his Sefer Torah and read it to find out that his son Yosef was alive and avoid all that heartache?"

Krum as 3-Month Old Herring

Hat tip: Krum as a Bagel, who made this. It's just really well done.

Quantitative Easing Explained (Hilarious)

Hat tip: Dad

This is great, and right on the money (no pun intended). Once you get through 20 seconds you'll love it.

Porcelain Unicorn

Hat tip: Aunt Anne/Serach.

Ridley Scott announced Porcelain Unicorn from American director Keegan Wilcox as the winning short film in Philips’ Tell It Your Way film-making contest.

The contest, which received over 600 entries from around the world, invited aspiring filmmakers to create an original short film using the same six-line dialogue as the Cannes Lions award-winning Parallel Lines short films directed by RSA talents Carl Erik Rinsch, Greg Fay, Johnny Hardstaff, Jake Scott and Hi-Sim.

Commenting on his choice of winner, Sir Ridley Scott said: “I chose Porcelain Unicorn to be the winning film as it had a very strong narrative; a very complete story that was well told and executed.”

Quitness