Life is crazy, who has time to blog?

When I got laid off recently, I thought that one silver lining would be that I'd catch up on a lot of blogging, on my own blog, and commenting on others. But it didn't turn out that way. Somehow, the lack of a regular schedule removed my little quiet pockets of time I used to have throughout the work week to spend blogging.

This week is the craziest of all. I'm travelling home after Yom Kippur tonight (2 hour drive), and this week I have job interviews in 2 states, neither of which I live in, have to finish building my sukkah, buy schach and buy a lulav & etrog.

I'll be doing a lot of sleeping on sukkot :-)

Shana Tova!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

God does not exist

I have emunah in God. And yet, he doesn’t exist. Let me clarify.

What’s the common definition of existence? Something that has a tangible reality as defined by empiricism. God doesn't meet that criteria, at least not the contemporary idea of an incorporeal god. Through much of the early middle ages, Jews believed that God had a body.

But now, we believe Him to be intangible and incorporeal. So he doesn't exist.

That's why I think "belief" is such a poor translation of "emunah". I have emunah in Hashem. I feel that outside of the reality of our world there is a spiritual realm and it is in that spiritual realm that God is. I use "feel" because that's what it is. It's about an emotional connection, not an empirical one.

That's why I feel that those who try to "prove" God are on the wrong track. You can never prove God's existence, because by all standards of measurement that we use in our physical plane, God doesn't exist.

JBlogger convention

Wasn't that supposed to be yesterday? I totally forgot. Seems to be a lot less discussion of it on the blogs I frequent than there was last year. Did anyone attend? (Either live or online) How was it?

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

CNN: Let's represent Maine voters with lobsters

Talk about gimmicks! Couldn't they just use apples? Or how about being really radical and just using numbers?

The yeshivish life treadmill

On Her Own writes about a young woman she knows who seems unhappily trapped in the yeshivish lifestyle:

"(she) cried to me for half an hour about how she hated wearing her sheitel (she said it pulled her hair out), how she felt like she'd thrown away her life, etc., etc...

...stood before me in her snood, shlumpy clothing covering a slouching and unhealthy looking figure, telling me in a monotone voice about her kids and the yeshiva in which her husband is learning"

Here's my comment to her post:

I feel for that girl, and unfortunately know so many people just like her, both men & women.

I think that the treadmill of seminary-marriage-kollel is a bit of a game. The people on this treadmill don't really think about the permanent ramifications of the treadmill until it's too late, until they're stuck in that life. The turning point is children and that usually happens pretty fast. Once kids are involved, there's rarely any turning back.

Perhaps that's why the yeshivish world urges this path - they know that marriage & kids are the quickest way of locking (very) young adults into the "torah true" lifestyle.

Where I am now

Ahhh, it's nice to be taking a nice lunchtime hike :-)

The woods clear my brain.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I said no to a tzedaka plea

I was walking in the old city of Jerusalem today when a yeshivish guy, around 30 years old, asked me for some monetary help for Shabbat.

I said no.

The thing is, I used to always give to anyone who asked. Not just Jews. When I lived in NY, unless it was shabbat or I had no change on me, I gave something to any panhandler who wasn't an obvious junkie. Not much, just a dime or a quarter, or in Israel, a shekel. But something.

However, I moved away from New York a few years ago. A few states away. And ever since I've lived in places with very few panhandlers, so I'm out of practice.

So today was my first experience for quite a while. And when I was approached by a healthy looking guy without any apparent disabilities, I immediately thought "kollel guy".

My second thought was "why should I help to perpetuate a system I disagree with? I see nothing noble in learning Torah full time if it means having to turn to tzedaka for your family to buy food for shabbat."

So I said no. He walked on and I immediately felt guilty. After all, maybe he's not a kollel guy. Maybe he's a poor guy who can't find a job? But based on his look, my initial instinct was probably correct. But even if he was a kollel guy, in the old days I would never have said no to someone asking for help for shabbat.

Maybe I read too many blogs complaining about the kollel system...

So what do you think? Was I being smart or just stingy?

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I'm driving by the security barrier

The left hates it - they see it as a land grab.

The right hates it - they don't want any future border defined.

I wholeheartedly approve of it. I regret that it makes Palestinians' daily lives more difficult, but not having daily attacks on Israelis makes their daily lives easier, and that's my primary concern.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Eliyahu, Yosef, Porush: If you sell land to Arabs, you can't be counted in a Minyan

Ridiculous

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804468650&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Speed bumps in Israel

Sitting in the Nesher sherut to Jerusalem, I have come to the following conclusion about the purpose of speedbumps in Israel vs. In the US.

US:
Drive slower.

Israel:
Between each set of speedbumps, even if they're only separated by 10 feet, test the car's ability to accelerate to 80mph and test the brakes' ability to come to a screeching halt.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Live blogging Israel - sort of

Just arrived in Israel for a family wedding.

I'm not usually prone to "only in Israel" stories, but I have to relate a couple of small things.

1) The young female ElAl employee at JFK who asked me the usual "who packed your bags?", "did anyone give you a package?" questions also, after examining my Israeli passport, demanded to know why, if I had made aliyah, was I living in America. She then proceeded to strongly urge me to uproot my family immediately and return to Israel to live.

2) I caught a nasty cold on the plane. Hundreds of people in an enclosed space for 9 hours...
At Ben Gurion Airport, I approached the passport control desk. The woman at the desk, seeing me sniffling, immediately pulled out a roll of toilet paper (I guess she had no tissues) and sympathetically placed it in front of me.

It's nice to be home.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry