Month: October 2007
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Would you still be Religious?
Someone asked me the following question this week. This blog is my attempt at an answer (though I still don’t have a final answer, and may change my mind in the future) Let’s say archaeologists find writings from 2700 years ago, were King Josiah and the priests discuss the name of what is going to… Read more
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Alan Johnston’s answers
Alan Johnston is a BBC reporter who was held hostage in Gaza for 114 days. On the BBC website he answers readers questions in (what seems to me) quite a fair, honest and evenhanded way. Of course his kidnapping led him to a higher opinion of Palestinians in general (it was only the hostage takers… Read more
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Metal Kitchen Cabinets?
As some of you know, we need to replace our kitchen fairly urgently. The wood is rotting, there isn’t enough storage space, and just before Rosh Hashanah our kitchen sink collapsed. Hopefully we are getting most of a new (for us) kitchen from some friends who are redoing their appartment and getting rid of the… Read more
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Nevuchadnezzar was a shrimp!
My son came home from school today and proudly announced that he had learned in school that Nevuchadnezzar, King of Babylon and the entire known world, was in fact very short. “Did I know how short?” he asked. “No”, said I, fearing the worst. “Nevuchadnezzar was exactly 1 tefach tall!” came the answer. Well of… Read more
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D.I.V.O.R.C.E. F.A.I.R.
Gone are the days when people would be so embarrassed they would only spell the word D.I.V.O.R.C.E. Nowadays everyone is doing it. Marriages are considered successful if they last longer than the leftovers from Shabbos. But perhaps this is going a bit too far: You can’t fault the organisers of this fair – after all… Read more
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National Anthem
I was feeling nostalgic today, and found a clip of the New Zealand national anthem – “God Defend New Zealand) on youtube. You can watch it here if you don’t remember how it goes. My co-worker pointed out to me how negative the title of the anthem is. New Zealanders just ask G-d to defend… Read more
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Amnesty Interntational DOESN’T condemn Israel
Mashiach must definitely be on the way. A report from Amnesty International which accuses the Palestinians (both the good ones and the bad ones) of human rights violations! And even the BBC manages to write 8 paragraphs before it mentions that everything is Israel’s fault. It is interesting to see that both the BBC and… Read more
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Grumpy Old Man vs the Racist
OK, I’m not very happy. It is 2:30am and I have been woken up AND kicked out of bed by two of my daughters (independently). So I am tired and grumpy. I came to check what is going on in blogland (I know – blogosphere, right?). For some reason this blog caught my eye (on… Read more
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demotivation
Woop-de-do! I have been blogging for almost exactly a year, and have had almost 5000 hits on my blog. Not setting any world records here am I! But it has been mostly fun (except when I blogged about something that upset some people, and they tried to get me fired from two jobs, as well… Read more
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Yarzheit – the Rosh
The Rosh is one of the most crucial Rishonim on the Talmud. He is printed in the back of almost every Talmud, and is useful both as a halachacist, and also as one of the last tosafists he often clarifies and explains their position. He is the bridge between Talmudic commentary and Halachic works. His… Read more