Holy blood

Recently my boss had an appointment with a salesman who wanted our companies business. The guy walks in, and he’s all buff and he looks like someone who spent all his free time at the gym working out. He and my boss go over pricing of the items, and the guy starts talking about how he teases the main guy of the company that he should get some business because he has “holy blood.”

Another person at the office overheard this asked “holy blood? How?”

And the salesman says “I’m about 5 generations a descendent from the Vilna Goan.”

So we all kinda look at him like “WOW” ‘cause we definitely didn’t expect that. So anyway, the guy starts talking about how he goes to a reform synagogue and that he actually likes his rabbi

.

So my boss goes “Oh yea? How much do you pay your rabbi?”

Salesman says a number over 6 figures. So we all kinda look at him like “WOWWWWW”

My boss says “how much vacation does he get?”

Saleman goes “well, we’re a reform synagogue he’s always on vacation. But he gets housing and a car.”

Then he tells a story of how one of the kids he coaches (don’t remember the sport) also goes to his temple… The kid (I guess he was about 13) was freaking out worried because one of his games was going to fall out on yom kippur and he wasn’t sure if he should go to service on Yom Kippur and upset his teammates/friends who rely on him for the games, or forget service and do what he should for his team. So the kid went to the Rabbi with his problem, and the Rabbi said “play the game. Gd will forgive you, but your friends never will.”

I was trying SOOOOOOO hard not to laugh.

The other ladies husband is a REAL rabbi and she was like “I totally disagree, some things are just not negotiable.”

Its just so sad how someone who KNOWS he’s a decendent from such a man can have a pathetic excuse of a rabbi like that!

Excercising our right to vote, and the new ballot machine

In order to exercise our right to vote, my hubby and I woke up a tad earlier than usual to make it to the ballot before work.

When we arrived at our voting place and were welcomed by a few old ladies who told us where our distract’s voting station was. Lo’ and behold the complications…

At first the lady could not find my name. She found my husbands and was confused why it was not *my* name. Another lady quickly ran over, started helping out as well… my husband was set up with a ballot, a little manila folder that said “Private” (or something like that on it) and off he was to vote. Lucky for him, he looked at his ballot and realized they gave him the ballot from the *other* party!

Hubby says “You gave me the wrong ballot.”

The two ladies “What do you mean wrong ballot?”

Quickly another lady ran over and explained that you have to WATCH for which party the voter is coming from, you can’t just give out all the ballots from the SAME stack!

Quickly they had to rewrite everything onto the right parties information card.

Finally when you can vote, you have to go into this privacy booth, you put your ballot down, and what you see brings you back to HS. It’s each candidates name with little ovals next to them and you have to color them in! MULTIPLE CHOICE EXAM FOR YOUR ELECTION!

When you’re done coloring in the little ovals next to your candidates name you put your ballot back into the manila folder (to maintain privacy) and then you stand in line to wait for the scanner, hoping your ballot doesn’t fall out and give out who you voted for!

Of all the stupid things, you have to scan your ballot face UP! Why? Where’s the privacy?

Anyway, I dislike this new voting machine. I liked the old one way better!

PUtting Kiruv on ICe

I've been saying for years that commercial Kiruv is a complete and total waste of money. For years it was obvious that the frum community was in a huge "parnassa crisis" and the recession took it in for an even bigger economic down turn. And now, we have yeshiva's closing their doors (4 of them in Lakewood) and we have families who can barely afford to put food on the table.

While frum people are a bit slow in realizing *WHY* the community is in a crisis (if your men ain't working yet you're reproducing you shouldn't be surprised)... they're slowly coming up with ideas (mostly stupid ones) on how to keep money flowing... one of which is the kiruv thing... Well... ok... a letter writer on Matzav suggested that kiruv be put on ice for the time being.

The article suggests that no one really even knows if organization that do kiruv actually turn people frum.

:)

I'm personally on cloud 9. After all I've been saying for years YOU CANNOT MAKE SOMEONE FRUM. THE PERSON HAS TO BE OPEN TO IT. If the person is already open to it, you don't need to spend a ton of money on them, just INVITE THEM OVER TO YOUR HOUSE! IF they are *not* open to the idea of becoming frum, you can give them all the luxuries, they'll take advantage of them CUZ YOU'RE GIVING IT TO THEM FOR FREE, but they won't actually become frum from it.

Don't want it to rain, don't buy a raincoat!

The following is a letter to the Editor. It was published in the Yated, in December I think (I randomly browse the paper). THe comments is from a friend of mine on the bottom:

Dear Editor,

Have you noticed that it has been raining every shabbos recently? Just a thought on the matter.

A story is told about a Rav Elazar Shach zt"l who was once asked if women should learn CPR so that they can respond and act in a situation in which a child would need it. Rav Shach said not to learn it, beacause Hashem does not put a person in a situation that he cannot deal with. If they were to know CPR, new situations would occur where they would, chas vashalom, have to administer it.

Ever since the invention of the new raincoat/garbage bag, we have noticed more and more rain over shabbos. In the past rain on Shabbos meant weekday hats, insufficiently warm raincoats, going to a shul close by, etc. Now all that has changed.

Perhaps, if we were to cut back on purchasing these deluxe rain slickers, the rain would slow down.

P.S. Enjoy the forecasted rain this Shabbos too!

Sincerely,

Drenched in Lakewood

Heres what I think:

According to this logic, Jews should no longer be doctors nor should they be searching for cures for cancer cuz then it'll just cause more illness- because Hashem wouldn't give us anything we couldn't handle. And of course there should be no jewish tzedaka organizations because if there's no way to provide for the poverty stricken then we'd never have to deal with poverty.

The reason we're supposed to learn is so we get closer to g-d and have more kedusha and to avoid falling to the temptation of our yetzer hara, but if we stop preparing ourselves for those situations then we'll never come in contact with tumah/sin.

My life just took a turn- im just gonna sit around and do nothing all day so that I have nothing to deal with!

Ahh- the flawless logic of Yated readers!

Something wise

A coworker of mine happens to be a bit of a frummy. The other day we were talking and somehow or other we got into the conversation of shidduchim (nothing shocking). I was telling her random things like how my father is super into shidduchim and how he set up two couples and so forth. I told her that I try to set people up, and so far no successes, and she told me how she tried a couple of shidduchim and gave it up.

She explained that shidduchim is super complicated. She was going on and on about how you have to call everyone to get "information" on the person to make sure they're alright, and she said its just not worth it. Then after a pause she was like "And the questions sometimes are just so stupid."

TO which I said "I know right, I had a shidduch call about my friend, and the guy asked me if she's helpful in the house, as if I live with her and I know what she does when no on is observing!"

SO my coworker goes "Yea, and even so, its such a stupid question, its all a matter of who you marry anyway."

Then she said:

"I had a neighbor who was a complete slob. She had 9 kids and the house was always dirty and messy, and it was disgusting to go in there. Her oldest daughter never helped her. She was lazy and just didn't allow the dirt to bother her and she sat on the porch and sucked her thumb. Yet, she got married. Her sister, the second daughter, the same thing, a complete slob. Totally didn't care. It wasn't until the third daughter was 'in charge' as the oldest that anything ever got cleaned... A few years down the line, I bumped into that oldest daughter that was a slob, and she had many kids, yet, she was the biggest neat freak. She had everything clean and neat. The house was always nice and clean and her kids were taught to help... So you really never know. Its who you live with, and the circumstances. The neatest person can turn into a slob too."

To myself, I thought that this women was so wise. I mean, she was older than me, and age brought about so much wisdom. And I know, that from my own marriage, there are a lot of things I hadn't expected to be doing or not be doing in regards to cooking & cleaning.

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Chutzpah!

I was speaking to an older person I know about how much kollel bothers me. I was telling her how much I found it irresponsible for someone who had no job to marry, and I told her even more so, how much it bothers me when they leech on the society from the get-go (have hachnoses kallah to pay for wedding for example).

The lady completely agreed with me, and told me the following story, which was just mind-boggling, but unfortunately super believable.

She used to live in Boro Park and one day she had a knock on her door, and it was a beggar. It was a frummy young guy, all dressed in his penguin-self, collecting money for his wedding.

My friend was not dressed tzniously (as she was conservative and not frum), but was dressed in a robe that was sleeveless.

The guy, asked for money, and then started explaining how my friend should not be dressed the way she was, and that she needed sleeves! Then he again, asked for money.

My friend was rightfully pissed off, and she said to him "I work hard, and I pay for things, on my own. if YOU are getting married, *you* should have a job and work too, I will not give you any money, because you're younger and able-bodied and perfectly capable of getting a job. If you can't pay for your wedding, you shouldn't be getting married. and if you're poor, you just shouldn't be having a wedding, only a chupah."

The guy was annoyed and left.

Chutzpah! Talking about tznius, being a lazy leech, while expecting others to pick up the tab!

saving neshamos?

I was at shul on shabbos and actually stayed to listen to the speech - can’t figure out why Rabbi’s are allowed to speak! Priests/Reverands give sermons shouldn’t speeches be considered goyish now? - Anyway, the speech was about a whole bunch of things which only proved that Rabbi’s don’t understand what being an employee in corporate America is like… but I’m not going to get into that… What irritated me most, is what I’m here to write about… Kiruv (sorta).

During the speech the Rabbi was saying something about kiruv and how kiruv professionals “save” countless neshamos, but in the meantime their own kids are known to regularly go off the derech.

Now, I’d like to ask

1- What are these non-frum Jews being “saved” from by becoming frum?

*As Jews we don’t believe in hell in the way Christians do. We don’t believe in eternal damnation; nor do we believe in this huge red monster who will keep us in a huge hot fire cave

*As Jews we are taught to believe that Gd that is merciful and forgiving. When we pass away (@ 120) we’ll go through like a t'shuva process to cleanse ourselves for a few months and then we go to a good place.

*As Jews if we have any intellectual honesty, we know we’re *all* gonna end up in a form of gehenim anyway. Kosher or not… and even the worst man just ends up there for a little longer (except those who qualify for the “yimach shemom’ category)… so really, what are we saving them from? We’re not saving them from anything we’re not already *all* gonna be a part of.

*Religion is not for everyone. Some people can’t have their lives dictated by diets that are the “fad”. Nor can they live a life in which they have to worry about everything they serve in their house because someone else may not eat there. Some people just shouldn't be religious.

So really what are we saving them from other than their own ability to CHOOSE what they want, without it being bombarded down by BS crap?


2- If Kiruv-professional kids are known to be going off the derech, REGULARLY, why in the hell are we even DOING COMMERCIAL KIRUV?

- *Chessed* begins at home… so even if a frum persons neshama is somehow “safer” (still don’t know how) than a non-frum persons neshama, why are we risking the neshamos of those who are *already* frum? Isn’t there a thing that Gd only minimally punishes us if we’re unaware that we’re doing something wrong, whereas if we *know* we’re doing something wrong our punishment is that much worse? So why are we educating a public that doesn’t really know how much wrong they’re doing while allowing people who *know* perfectly well HOW MUCH WRONG they’re doing to still not do it? Why not just leave the non-frum Jews non-frum and allow the Frum Jews to REMAIN frum. If we allow that, there is minimul punishment amongst the Jews.

Pretty much, Rabbis go on and on and preach about how "chesed begins at home", they dont practice what they preach, and BAM, their own kids go OTD, and they validate it by claiming they "saved" neshamos!