Bee-reavment

As I have been kashering my apartment for Passover, the building has been hitting high heats, combined with the fact that it is is the 90s outside and I am burning the stovetops after using industrial oven cleaner, so I have all of the windows open as well as the front door and the air conditioner running full blast.

About a half hour ago I saw a bee flying around my dining room table. As someone who doesn't react well to bee-stings, I decided I can't just have him flying around my apartment, but I also didn't want to hurt him (unlike mosquitos whose sole existences is to suck my blood and spread disease which I will dispatch without regret, and sometimes on Shabbat; for though it is forbidden to kill on Shabbat, because mosquitos may carry a host of deadly diseases, including West Nileand therefore Pikuach Nefesh kicks in), but the bee doesn't actually want to hurt me. So I turned off the lights, ended up crashing my leg into the coffee table which I had turned around in order to clean and so my leg started bleeding.

Anyway, I tried to direct the bee outside, spraying some scented air fresheners as bees rely heavily on their sense of smell (or so is my understanding). But instead he went into my window screen. I shut the window trying to figure out what to do with him. I got a long umbrella and tried to remove my window screen or use it to direct him to the two gaping holes that were in the window screen before I moved in. He was just running around frantically. I tried to dustbuster him and then planned on reversing it when I got outside, but he ran away from it. I accidentially crushed him with the umbrella tip after about 15 minutes, he was mortally injured at this point, so I put him out of his misery, feeling horrible about it, though needing to uphold the mitzvah against Tzar Baaleh Chayim, that you shouldn't subject animals to pain.

This is part of a trend of ways I have been feeling about living creatures as of late. I have been seriously considering vegetarianism recently. Some, such as my downstairs neighbor, may scoff at my suggestion (though he has recently dropped a ranking in the food chain, himself). I was somewhat affected by the class we did on Shechita as well as seeing a rooster sacrificed for Kapparot with my cousins before Yom Kippur.

I, in fact, have been having feelings regarding the wastefulness of our culture, how we waste food, electricity, water, fill the landfills, it's totally ridiculous. I am totally guilty of all of these things. As someone who, due to my job, goes to bar mitzvah and wedding parties beyond number I notice the sheer wastefulness of people, beyond money.

I think the way we slaughter animals is the most humane way to do it. After seeing "No Country for Old Men" I think the captive bolt pistol is just barbaric. At least in Kashrut we need to show respect for the animals (or ideally we should)

I don't know what I'm going to do regarding this. I do enjoy eating meat and don't see myself as a vegetarian. But I'm thinking of cutting back. I don't know. Time will tell. Besides, this is a poor time of the year to give up meat. What can a vegetarian eat during pesach because soy, beans, rice, seeds, and corn are all forbidden. I can't just eat flax seed for an entire week (for some reason flax is okay...)

Anyway, that's just another rant. Delayed Dvar Torah on Metzora soon... possibly...

Ahmadinejad is a Sukkah!

(Should be pronounced in the Mr. T pronounciation, not the impending holiday, though that's the reason I used said title)

So I have received maybe 200 e-mails in the past week and a half about Mahmud Ahmadinejad (first spellcheck suggestion in Firefox, BTW: "Shadiness"; how appropriate...). He came, on Monday, to my Alma Mater, Columbia University. Why does columbia continually do this? Anyway, I sent a number of e-mails to the VBS listserv this week and I want to share them with you. Note that I have not included other peoples' e-mails to protect their privacy so they might be out of context:

Sep 21, 2007 9:36 AM
	subject			Re: Ahmadinejad
	mailed-by			gmail.com

As an alumnus and as a member of LionPAC, Columbia's AIPAC arm, I want you to be assured that he's going to have a little welcoming committee when he comes. He was supposed to come speak last year but cancelled at the last minute. Perhaps he will rethink once again speaking on a campus on which a third of the students are Jewish and a good portion are Israelis.

Gmar Tov and a meaningful fast,
Matt

Sep 23, 2007 10:27 PM
	subject			Re: Ahmadinejad
	mailed-by			gmail.com

It's funny, in the last week I have gotten over 100 e-mails regarding the Ahmadinejad situation; the last 11 consecutive e-mails have had the word Ahmadinejad in the header. I have been invited to protests through the Columbia Political Union, Columbia/Barnard Hillel, AIPAC, IsraelCampusBeat, StandWithUsCampus, a chevruta (study partners) program I used to be affiliated with, and various students of Columbia, Barnard, and the Jewish Theological Seminary, as well as invitations to seminars about Iran and Ahmadinejad, and a friendly reminder from the Columbia Democrats to protest nicely.

I turned on FOX News this morning and it was the top story. Sure, Columbia is no stranger to controversy. On IsraelCampusBeat, which reports on Israel and Jewish-related "issues" on universities worldwide, there are usually at least two articles with the little blue Roary The Lion icon, signifying that there is yet another example of Israel getting somehow disparaged in a Columbia classroom/Anti-Iraq War protest, so it comes as no surprise to me that a campus which two years ago rejected the obvious academic intimidation perpetrated by anti-Israel and anti-Semitic (and when I say Semitic, I mean anti-Jewish, nobody ever refers to the other descendants of Shem by this moniker, so please don't counter with the semantics as Professor Hamid Dabashi did when he called a Jewish student with blue eyes "not Semitic") professors not allowing any pro-Israeli opinions within their classrooms. Indeed, nothing surprises me anymore about some of the enterprising (read: incredibly idiotic and embarrassing) programs which my fair Alma Mater and President Lee Bollinger comes up with.

So, yes it was stupid to invite the President of Iran, but at the same time it the opportunity of a lifetime to hear the Hitler of our times on our own home turf. I would not want to be the Jew in the crowd at a Nazi Rally in 1935 Berlin, but the fact is that Ahmadinijad is going to "Columbia JEWniversity of JEW York City" (as we so belovedly call it), where he will be preaching to a whole bunch of Jews. He's not going to win anyone over with his ranting propaganda. He's not in Tehran where they eat up his every anti-Semitic word, but in a room filled with headstrong intellectuals who won't take any of his crap. I just fear that he will be heckled as my fellow students heckled John Ashcroft a couple of years ago... that was just embarrassing.

Count on this not to end pretty. I cringe in advance.

Shana Tova,
Matt

Sep 24, 2007 6:11 PM
	subject			Re: Fw: Columbia President's Statement About President Ahmadinejad's Appearance
	mailed-by			gmail.com

Yes indeed, I am proud of President Bollinger who couldn't have handled it any better. As for the statement, it is actually much longer and much juicier. The transcript of his introduction can be found at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/07/09/lcbopeningremarks.html

One of the best lines: "Let's, then, be clear at the beginning, Mr. President you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."

I found these other lines in an article on Breitbart: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070924225252.klmczhdo&show_article=1

"Why are you so afraid of Iranian citizens expressing their opinions for change?" he asked, challenging the leader of the Islamic republic to explain his comments downplaying the Holocaust.

"Frankly, in all candor Mr President, I doubt you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions," he added.

"When you come to a place like this, this makes you quite simply ridiculous. You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated," he said.

The truth is that the Holocaust is the most documented event in human history." (as found on a Fox News Article http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297823,00.html)

As for President Ahmadinejad, he once again proved himself a fool. "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who has told you that we have it." He was evasive on the simplest of questions regarding his basest policies.

I am yet to watch the speech but I am currently instant messaging friends who saw it live so I will update you when I hear more. As of now, I feel good that my worst fears weren't realized -- that Columbians didn't make fools of the United States by heckling and not hearing him out, however stupid he sounds. And as for President Bollinger, I am proud of his ability to not sugarcoat (which I feared he would) but instead attacked where it hurts, even if Ahmadinejad was completely evasive or ridiculous at points. I don't think Iran's president expected it to go like this at all, broadsided as he was, and I think he will rethink how he talks to outside media in the future.

Matt

As of press I am both proud of and ashamed of Columbia. I am proud that President Bollinger broadsided the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran and made him look like a complete fool and liar. I am proud of the Hillel, LionPAC, and other groups and decent individuals who peacefully protested against the Hitler of today from the actual Aryan country (Aryan people originally migrated from Iran. However, I am ashamed and horrified that students cheered when Ahmadinejad called for the destruction of the State of Israel. Having attended Columbia for four and a half years I know that there is a lot of Israel-hating that goes on there. But cheering a murderous terrorist who calls on it's destruction?! I don't separate Anti-Israel and Anti-Semitism. Also self-hating Jews can also be anti-Semites. I consider members of the Jewish sect of Netueri Karta to be anti-Semites. I also consider former acquaintances who have fallen in with the socialist crowd and have become anti-Israel... well you can see why they are not current friends... The great irony in the socialist crowd is that the socialists seem to support the dictator-run countries while denouncing Israel, the only country in the world where socialism has remotely worked. The country was formed by socialists and social Zionism and the Kibbutz system is the best example of social communism at work. Not that I support communism or socialism, but I just find it funny that most of these socialists seem to support fascism over socialism.

Yom Tov is coming, but I don't think I'm done with this one. Gut Yontif and as we celebrate the festival in which we traditionally advocate for all of the other nations of the world, may I advocate that the residents of nations that are forcibly suppressed by evil dictators overthrow their captors. As it is written in the Uvchen prayers of the High Holidays which have just passed, "ki taavir mimshelet zadon min haaretz", "for You shall cause to be removed wicked governments from the world".

Gut Yontif.

F'n Dodgers! (AKA 19th Annual Dem Bums)

Well, the Bums have done it again, and the Dodgers have once again turned a first place in the Major Leagues season into total crap, ending up in 4th place in NL West. My one consolation is at least we beat the San Francisco Giants. Well, better luck next year for the 20th annual jubilee without a World Series ring or even advancing in the playoffs to pennant contention (as last year: Chas V'Shalom)...

I guess dodgerblues.com is still in business...

Jerusalem Embassy Act

In honor of the fortieth anniversary of our liberation and reunification of our eternal capital, Jerusalem, in a battle that took two days to accomplish in a major war that lasted only six days, after a gap of about 1,900 years, I would like to mention something that has been bugging me. There is rampant anti-Semitism that does not allow Jerusalem to be recognized as the eternal united capital of Israel and the Jewish people. While the Palestinians and their lackeys are blowing themselves up and murdering innocent civilians, the world has it in for the Jews who have supported the rights of all (which is why we haven't knocked down anything on our Temple Mount as we respect other cultures). However many appeasements we make, it is not good enough. The specific thing that is bugging me is that there are few or no nations that recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Every country has their embassy in Tel Aviv since Costa Rica and El Salvador moved from Jerusalem a couple of months ago. The UN is anti-Semitic as is Jimmy Carter (sorry, had to throw that one in there.

About 12 years ago the United States congress voted to relocate the embassy back to Jerusalem, in what is known as the Jerusalem Embassy Act. The act explicitly declares Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel and demands that the embassy be moved to Jerusalem no later than 1999. The penalty for not doing this (unless the president signs a postponement waiver every six months) is severe, as seen in Section § 3.3.b

Not more than 50 percent of the funds appropriated to the Department of State for fiscal year 1999 for "Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad" may be obligated until the Secretary of State determines and reports to Congress that the United States Embassy in Jerusalem has officially opened.

Presidents Clinton and Bush II have postponed this every single time. I talked to my congressman about this and he said that his top priority is Iran but that this is important too. Let's see what happens, but it's probably going to be just a whole bunch more years of red tape. Sigh...

For those who don't want to actually read the legalese, there is brief synopsis of the law that can be found here.

Entourage takes on Yom Kippur

Emily Gold: You want me to lie‽
Ari Gold: That is the beauty of Yom Kippur, as long as you apologize before sundown it doesn't matter what you do!

Thus was super-agent Ari Gold forgiven by God on last night's episode of Entourage, "Return of the King". This is over-the-top perversion of the actual meaning of Yom Kippur and yet it is a belief of many that the forgiveness of Yom Kippur is automatic.

There has been a recent trend in television, particularly on HBO, to lampoon and trivialize Judaism's most sacred traditions, such as Yom Kippur services and the Passover Seder... And I couldn't be happier. It happens that it has come in vogue to use Jewish humor, usually in the form of the "self-hating" Jew. It indicates that Jews and Judaism have become a hallmark in the highest indication of societal acceptance: the American sitcom.

Take, for example, the aforementioned episode of Entourage. An Orthodox Jew complains of the "Half-Church Reform Temple down the street" and the non-Jewish main characters drink before ten AM because today is a holiday. "Which holiday?" "Yom Kippur!". The second season episode, "The Bat Mitzvah" portrayed a Jewish party that was "too much bar and not enough mitzvah"

My favorite uses of jokes at the expense of the Chosen People include Seinfeld-creator Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm,. This is especially juicy due to the fact that he is married to a WASP and his wife's family fails to understand Judaism (though Larry perverts his own religion as well). Episodes such as "The Seder", "The Survivor", and many others expose Judaism at its most ridiculous.

The most gratuitous and incredibly obscure Hebrew-humor comes from the Comedy Central cartoon/"reality show", Drawn Together. It contained in-Jokes that were too inside for most Jews to even get. Wooldoor Sockbat (who turns out to not even be Jewish) kills himself and his epitaph is given as something like "5751-now", a reference to the Jewish anno-mundi calendar. Captain Hero calls his mother Eema, the Hebrew word (actually a lend-word from Aramaic, but most Jews don't know that) for mother, properly pluralizing it as Eemahot. Jewish jokes abound; you'll probably find at least a dozen per episode.

How can I forget Borat, created by religious Jew Sacha Baron Cohen who exposes the anti-semitic sentiments of ignoramuses in both Great Britain and the United States.

Family Guy takes a few harsh and perhaps tasteless jabs at Judaism: in its pilot it crosses the line by having a chip-eating Peter Griffin exposing the hiding place of Anne Frank AND forces a religious Jewish High School student to "take off that damn hat" when he replaces the yarmulke on his head. "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" is an episode previously banned from television, a notorious act by FOX. This, however, seems to be the one show that doesn't really do its research and the dreydl and menorah is riddled with errors. Very funny though...

And then there is The Simpsons ("I know Weinstein's parents were upset, Superintendent, but I was sure it was a phony excuse. I mean, it sounds so made up: 'Yahm Kip-Pur'.") . My friends and I in college had a game where we would try to find at least one Jewish Joke in each episode as it first aired. There were a few episodes that expose the bottom line: that humor and Judaism go hand-in-hand. In "Like Father, Like Clown" Bart makes numerous attempts to reconcile a hard-line rabbinic father with his estranged clown of a son Krusty the Clown (a fuller account can be found in "The Simpsons Talmud" made by apparently fellow List alum Noah Gradowsky). Bart paraphrases Taanit 22a and says that the Messianic Redemption will be brought through the jesters. I believe it to be a method of our survival that we have also been known as the most self-depreciating people on the planet. Without humor there could be no joy, something deficient since the destruction of the Temple, and therefore this reference to the Messianic age being brought on by a clown is appropriate.

May it come soon and may it be very funny.

California Primary moved up

Governator Schwarzenegger signed into law yesterday that the 2008 Primary Elections in California will be moved up to February 5, 2008, from the original planned June primary date. This is HUGE. It makes California a much more important state. I thought it might be fun to move it to, say, January 8, 2008 and see what Iowa does in response with their Caucus. By Iowa state law they must have the first elections in the country. Well, where it is right now gives the great state of California, a state that if it was its own country would have the sixth largest economy in the world, as well as holding 55 congressional seats (13% of all voting house members are Californian), some serious leverage. New Hampshire, traditionally following Iowa, is now third after Nevada's Democratic Caucus. As a Californian I don't like the amount of time which candidates spend in Iowa (one of my former roommates is probably shaking his head right now) and New Hampshire. Why do these states that provide corn and (um) granite hold so much sway over the political make-up of the general elections? How about California that contributes all of the media (which my people, in turn, control)? Well now California is set at #5. Super Tuesday is gone. Now California is going to have its day and maybe we'll see a Presidential Candidate motorcade on Ventura Blvd sometime soon...