Tfillin

True occurrence:

A super frummy, a friend and I were shmoozing when the conversation turned to Tfillin and how expensive it was.

Friend said looking at frummy "You know, a friend of mine just bought Tfillin for his Bar Mitzvah son and it cost $1200!"

Frummy said "that's nothing, My brother-in-law just paid $1800 for Tfillin for his son."

Friend and I were totally shocked, after all, we could understand a difference in $100-$200 for the tfillin, but $600 is huge... so I asked "What's so special about that Tfillin?"
She said "Well, its from a soifer with greater yiras shamayim"



Honestly, it took alot of strengh to keep from cracking up- not that friend and I were any nicer in our reaction- we both made funny looking faces which gave a clear explaination of our thoughts "WTH? HOw can you tell?"

Then, one of us (don't remember who first) said "what? How can you tell?" OUT LOUD and so frummy was like "Well, they... "

I couldn't fully understand what she said, but it was pretty obvious that the laymans terms version of it woulda been something like this "they have better handwriting"...

I was like "FOR REAL?!"

Why are people so frikkin stupid? I mean, I understand paying more money for BETTER QUALITY stuff, but lets face it, the writing will fade no matter who wrote up the tfillin. Eventually the Tfillin is going to need to be checked, so unless you fly the Tfillin back to Israel (where else would someone with greater Yiras Shamayim live?), it aint gonna be any different.

Then these bozo's complain about how expensive it is to be frum.

non-Jew coworker on Jewish men

One non-Jewish lady at my office said to me "You know, back in the former Soviet Union, all of us wanted to marry Jewish guys. They were known to be the best. They worked, they didn't drink and they didn't have girlfriends... And if they did, their wife and child always came first if anything major happened."

I thought that was an amazing thing she said, and then I responded "they don't really work so much anymore."
She was like "WHAT!?"
I said "yea, its not in style for them to work, they don't work, they sit in yeshiva and learn all day, and get married, and continue to sit in yeshiva and learn all day"

She said "they can do that, but no one will want to marry them!"
I said "yea, umm... its in style for girls to want a guy like that and for her dad to provide for them"

To which my coworker responded "They're not Jewish then. Jewish men are actually hardworking." (She would know, she married a Jew)

I thought to myself "its a sad world when the non-Jew recognizes the insanity of our current culture."

On wearing a Hat

The following qoute describes perfectly how I feel about hats:

A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat. P. J. O'Rourke