The Complete Idiot's Guide

On the Train

2011-09-15T23:44:00.003+02:00

There are moments where life itself seems limitless absurd. I find they come most often with me when I am looking through the window of a car or a train. I catch sight of something perfectly ordinary; such as it might be a cluster of flowers nodding on an embankment or a family picnicking on a lush green field, and suddenly my mind can no longer support the notion of a whole life full of life, objects and fellow humans. The very idea of a universe appears monstrous, and I become unable to participate.

What on earth does that tree think its doing? Why is that heap of gravel sitting there so patiently? What am I doing staring at it through this window? Why are all these molecules of glass hanging together so as to allow me to look through them?

The moment passes, of course, and I return to the proper realm of dull thoughts about even duller newspapers. In less than a second I am part of the world again. Ready to be irritated into apoplexy by the stupidity of some politician or lured into caring about some asinine movement of interpretive art. Once again I become part of the of the great compost heap. My absence is so fleeting, and my control over it so negligent that an act of sheer will cannot reproduce the experience.

What am I to do with these moments? Those moments where life itself does not seem to exist? Where I am no longer part of anything and where nothing is of the remotest significance?

How I write an essay for school

2011-06-21T17:32:00.006+02:00

The day before due date:

0630: “Get the hell out of bed!!! It’s essay-writing time! Up you get!”

0631: Just kidding. Who gets up at 0630 to write an essay anyway? Press ‘snooze’ and hit the pillow. I’ll be able to concentrate much better with more sleep.

0900: Get up for real this time. Lie in bed cursing the very day I chose the subject with so many papers to write. What was I thinking?

0945: I make plans for an extravagant breakfast, the most important meal of the day, for after all I’ll need my strength later on.

1100: I go home and compile a badass I-have-to-write-an-essay-in-24-hours playlist on Grooveshark.com. Get pumped up!

1115: Okay, so I’m sitting in front of my computer — beats blaring — and finally ready to start that paper. Wait! Something’s missing! Spend the next 30 minutes looking for that handout containing the instructions for the paper.

1145: Notice the Quick Time Player on from last night. I must have fallen asleep in middle of How I Met Your Mother. I’ll just finish this and get started on my 10-page essay.

1330: Having finished the entire season I wander into the food temple and look around for an innutritious, preservative-filled luncheon. Vowing, as I munch on the super family sized bag of Bamba, that I’ll start that essay right away.

1400: Open tab after tab on Wikipedia, realizing that this is the first time I’m actually reading about this subject. I soon get lost in the world of knowledge, hacking away at the emerald towers of wisdom, and feel really good/busy about having 20 tabs open.

1500: Decide it’s not too late after all to go to the Library and actually glance at some of the textbooks, hoping that it’ll be somewhat empty at this unmoral hour of a sunny afternoon. An original idea? That can’t be too hard to find, the library must be full of those.

1504: On the way get invited to the Pub and I realize that it has been almost a month since I had a nice cold, wet one in the sun with my buddy and concede to attend the day-drinking party “but only for one drink, I’m very busy today”.

1710: Arrive at library very relaxed, red-cheeked and a little dizzy. I find a quiet corner (THE COUCH IS FREE MUHAHAHA) and skim the books for anything worth copying while always looking up whenever somebody passes my corner of solitude.

1800: Update my Facebook status to include any vivifying, moaning, and complaining of my subject matter, professor, heat, or my own laziness.

E.g. “I wish whoever invented calculus were alive so that I could kill him violently with a used and rusty shovel”

2000: Library closes but I have enough material swarming around in my head to start my essay as soon as I get home.

2030: Thinking that I have all the time I need by pulling an all-nighter (me, tired? Nahh) I play a couple of levels of Call of Duty and eat cold pizza from last night… or was it from last week?

2330: Shit! Let’s do this! Boy, am I tired all of a sudden. A six-pack of Redbull and some coffee beans later and I start writing the easiest part of the essay. I figure 90 minutes for each page, 60 if I BS and write every thing really long and use unnecessary language as well as I repeat everything and write stuff longer than necessary.

0400: Five pages in. I am lost in an essay-writing vortex. I’ve spent at least 30 minutes of deep meditation, contemplating why my teacher is such an asshole, why I chose this stupid, irrelevant program, and whether it’s too late to be a doctor. I text those thoughts to my friends, only to receive a haughty “I told you shouldn’t have left it to the last minute”. I decide not to text back until I’ve gotten an A+ on my paper so I can give him the “I told you I’m badass” text. Resume work.

0500: I’ve completed six out of 10 pages and my brain is failing to process information. I just typed a sentence that says, “Internaiotnl institiutons produce copperaiton . . . when they, you know, mke ppl get along and stuffffff. This sucks. Just stop.” You’re right: it does suck. It’s time for bed.

0630: UP YOU GET!! You know who writes essays at 0630? You do, especially if it’s due in 7 ½ hours.

1000: I have finaly finished the body of the paper and I’m feeling pretty good about myself. I make a vow to get an early start on all my papers for the rest of my undergraduate career. From this point on, I am going to be a good . . .

1001: Fall asleep

1200: YOU FELL ASLEEP?! I wipe the drool off my face and write the introduction and conclusion, and print it for a look-over.

1230: Essay finished. That’s right I am that good. Making to update my Facbook status to let everybody know that my short visit to the world of academia is finally over. I proudly send the essay in, quietly promising myself never to repeat that ordeal… until next week.

Cognitive Dissonance

2011-06-16T21:55:00.003+02:00

I met a man a few days ago. This man sat on the stairs leading up to a building and he looked to be very old. His hair was white as a ghost and his face was lined and hollow. He was bent and thick browed but had a twinkle in his eyes that told me he was still sharp of mind and present. That would not have been an uncommon sight if he had not been smoking a cigarette. The many stubs and matches on the floor in front of him, as well as the half finished pack clutched in his left hand, told me that he was one of those “chain-smokers”. The sight of such an old man smoking avidly intrigued me and I approached him and asked:

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but when did you start to smoke”?

“When I was eight” he replied in the deep, throaty, scratchy voice common to long-time smokers. I could just hear the pride in his tone, conceited to be member of such an obviously elite club.

“Wow” I answered ”and you’ve been smoking all your life since then “?

He nodded slowly with a thoughtful look in his eyes as if remembering the countless years of filling his lung with the carcinogenic material.

“3 packs a day”

“How old are you, if I may ask?”

“26” he croaked, succumbing to his fit of uncontrollable coughing.

No, it did not happen. Not to me in any event. However, we are all aware that people sometimes do things, which they know are bad for them. The crack addict will continue buying cocaine, the smokers tobacco, the alcoholic, gambler, shopper, workaholic, sex, internet, food, and video game addict will ALL continue getting their fix all the while knowing that they are moving ever closer to the grave. All the while thinking to himself or herself: “ You worthless sack of undeserving, mindless, pitiful, arse-wiping shithead! What fuck you doing? STOP IT!” What a tortured existence. And if it goes on for years it will be all the addict thinks of.

“So why then does he do it? Why won’t he just stop?” yell many an ignorant and self-appointed superior. “Why would he smoke if he knows it’s bad for him”? It is hard for a non-addict to understand. They think it simply a matter of willpower and should therefore be controlled, and if it cannot be controlled one is weak and pathetic, from the Greek pathos ‘suffering’. It is not a matter of willpower. You are neither wise nor ignorant; you are an addict. Psychology agrees that there’s such a thing as an “addictive personality”, which you are either born with or develop in response to repression or trauma. May G-d protect us. These addictive impulses must be fought every day, much like an otherwise genetically challenged person.

Psychology talks about ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ the uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Justifying, blaming, and denying also reduce dissonance.

Smoking is often postulated as an example of cognitive dissonance because it is widely accepted that cigarettes can cause lung cancer, yet virtually everyone wants to live a long and healthy life. In terms of the theory, the desire to live a long life is dissonant with the activity of doing something that will most likely shorten one's life. Quitting smoking, denying the evidence of lung cancer, or justifying one’s smoking, can reduce the tension produced by these contradictory ideas. For example, smokers could rationalize their behavior by concluding that only a few smokers become ill, that it only happens to very heavy smokers, or that if smoking does not kill them, something else will While chemical addiction may operate in addition to cognitive dissonance for existing smokers, new smokers may exhibit a simpler case of the latter. Wikipedia

Interestingly enough the same applies to sun bathing as it increases endorphin and is known to be harmful.

I usually try to write about things that I am either dealing with or experiencing. I find that by writing it down it settles into its rightful spot in my mind. This time the only reason I write to you is because I found this subject interesting and I really wanted to share it with you. Live long and prosper.

Expecto Patronum!

2011-06-02T17:28:00.003+02:00

Contrary to what I supposed three years ago, there are many things in this world that are noble, wholesome and pure. Most people we interact with on a daily basis are nice, decent, noble kind, and, like all of us us, rather afraid and insecure. Were it not for the infernal media spraying us daily with the vile and putrid “braking news” of diseases, murders, child abuse, accidents and fires we would be most optimistic about the world we live in. I dare not say that pretending those terrible things don’t happen every day is advisable. On the contrary, the more we know about the world and how it is the better, but I think we all could do with a little less “…and then he turned the gun on himself” and much more of “…held the door open for an old lady” or “finished Mishnayot for deceased relative”.

Out of the many noble, wholesome, and pure things I mentioned, is one in particular that has a reserved place in my heart. Or, I should say, seven things, for I am talking Harry Potter. I am not in the least bit embarrassed to confess that I devour all of those books several times and year, and with each repeat I see the books in a new and adoring light. Harry Potter is about life: beautiful, scary, wonderfully frightening, and invigorating life. It exposes the reader to true friendship, love, sincerity, responsibility, loyalty, bravery, hardships, and the importance of facing all that is evil in this world. To me, reading HP is like having all the characters come alive and gently prod me long the path of becoming a better, kinder and wiser person whilst telling me to ignore opposition. In the name of the dearly beloved Dumbledore: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

I can, of course, only speak for myself, but as it turns out, most things that hold me back from becoming whom I ought to be are things within me: anxiety, bigotry, apathy, animosity, egocentricity, or any other words ending with the letter y. What is it, for example, about lying in bed at night that makes my brain put on a HD crisp movie about all the things I’ve done wrong in my life. Any good feeling or sense of happiness is sucked out of me and should I entertain that feeling of melancholy and misery for too long I become worse than dead. Without a soul, staring into the void, living with the worst version of me there is.

It’s as if a Dementor were hovering over my bed, preparing to kiss me with its horrible rotten mouth. When Harry is exposed to the Dementors he wishes nothing more to fight them, to push them and their horrid influence away. Professor Lupin finally agrees to teach Harry the protective spell after the Dementors made him fall off his broom during a Quidditch match. The incantation is expecto patronum (“I await a protector” in Latin) conjures an incarnation of the caster's innermost positive feelings, such as joy, hope, or the desire to survive, known as a Patronus. A Patronus "cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so Dementors can't hurt it."(HP3 p. 176) The conjured Patronus protects the witch or wizard that summoned it, obeys his or her commands, and fades away shortly after it is no longer required. Is that not great? The way to combat the horrid feelings of fear, worthlessness, or memories of wrongdoings is to focus with all your might on a happy feeling associated with an event. Keep holding on to that feeling of hope, happiness and love and say “expecto patronum”.

Harry’s corporeal Patronus is a stag, the same animal his father turned into at will. Harry connected to his beloved bur deceased father when he needed him. Again Dumbledore says it the best: "You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think we don’t recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your father is alive in you, Harry, and shows himself plainly when you have need of him. How else could you produce that particular Patronus? Prongs rode again last night."

Focus on happy times and connect to the people you love and those crippling feelings of inadequacy and fear will disappear. And when you have done fighting your Dementor you should – as advised by Remus – eat a lot of chocolate.

Astrobiology

2011-03-23T15:23:00.004+01:00

The name itself sounds strange to the ear. Astro means ‘star’, combine that with biology and it seems that Astrobiology belongs to the science fiction part of the bookstore. You and I both know that there is no ‘bios’ in the ‘astro’, and even if there were we don’t have any samples to inspect or evaluate. One can only study life (biology) if there is life. Astrophysics or Astronomy I can live with, even Astrology seems to have some validity in Judaism, but what does Astrobiology do?

What Astrobiologists like to do, is to examine our own earth. To know as much as they can what makes this world spin, tick and shine. So once they know that all life forms on this planet are based on carbon chemistry they can make the educated (and often drunk) assumption that this holds true all over our galaxy. Water, ammonia, a sun, an atmosphere etc. are all things we need to live, so they posit that the same rule applies everywhere else. Or they discover that a certain organism can survive without daylight at all, or without an atmosphere and can then apply that to planets that are missing those seemly essential properties.

Whether or not you agree that people should be studying that, or if you don’t think there is anything else out there is not important to this post. What is important is that in order for Astrobiology to learn anything at all about the universe it first has to learn all it possibly can about this world. It cannot look at any random planet and examine it for traces of life if it does not know all sorts of things about earth.

I recently wrote about how if I want to learn about myself I cannot focus inwards. I have to look outwards, at other people and how and why they do things, and once I see all that I would learn more about myself. That “looking out” outlook (snigger) will lead to self-discovery. The exact opposite methodology is applied in Astrobiology. They make assumptions - and I said that word with all the contempt and derision I could muster – about other planets based on how they are. It is the logical thing to do in their case; it would make no sense whatsoever if they did it the other way around, and I love it that they examine the world we live in.

In our analogy, however, I think if I want to learn how somebody else is then the worst thing I can do is assume that he/she is like me and thinks like me only because we share the same universe. If something holds true for me the same must not necessarily apply to somebody else. Assumptions happen on a daily bases and they are quit important for our survival. I, for example, assume that the building I am in is subject to regular health and structural inspections. I also assume that when it shows the green light on my traffic light, that the red one is shining on the perpendicular road. When examining another person, however, to assume how they are based on how I feel and think will not get me very far.

So I assume many things during my day, but when it comes to others I try to really ‘leave’ myself, to exclude my feelings and dispositions, when looking at the person. I try not to think, “how would I react if…” or “how would I feel?” but “how is he reacting, what does he feel?” to examine the other without assumptions based on how I see myself. Using that method I hope to understand others and why they do and say things. Wish me luck my friends.

I am all Grown up Now

2011-03-18T14:04:00.004+01:00

To my darling Reader:

I have truly loved your charming and captivating comments on my previous posts. Your opinions and discussions as well as your warm words of encouragement and praise helped me tremendously. I highly doubt if I would have gone beyond post number four had it not been for your welcoming comments. You corrected grammatical and spelling mistakes, and gently pointed towards some of my more serious mistakes, helping me see the errors of my ways. But I am afraid I have become too attached to your wise and guiding words. They have taught me how to stand and walk but now I must go on by myself.

I found myself hitting the `refresh’ button every other minute, hoping for a new comment. I quietly prayed for you to write anything at all, cursing your inconsideration and laziness when you did not. “Perhaps” I thought, “nobody is reading my posts any more”. “Maybe I am right in thinking that my writing is rubbish”. In other words I have become too dependent on your opinion and validation. As much as I adore and worship your comments I am afraid the time has come for me to ride without my training-wheels. I will, of course, continue with my writing, beautifying your day with the endless brand of loveliness that is my writing; or as my friends like to call it “the cutting edge opposite of interesting and attractive”.

Should you, however, find anything I write about in bad taste or you absolutely cannot hold your tongue about how divinely beautiful you think I am then you may reach me at bign8t@gmail.com.

Thus I bid you farewell dear Reader, I thank you very much for your many comments and wish you the very best of imaginable joy and happiness.

I'm Outta Here

2011-03-14T16:39:00.007+01:00

Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist and very close to my heart because he wrote “The Jungle Book” in 1894. He also wrote a poem called “The English Flag” in which he asks: “What do they know of England who only England know”. What do you know about your country if you never leave it? It is only when I left Switzerland and saw how different everybody is, that I learned more about my own country. “Gosh they do things differently here, I had no idea, I thought the way we did it at home was normal and natural”. I took many things for granted back home, but when I traveled I discovered that the timetable on Israeli bus stations is merely suggested guidelines than actual regulation; I learned that there is nothing to be afraid of when trapped in a metal tomb traveling at 100km/h while parks fly and lights shimmer in the infamous NYC metro subway cart. And the more countries I visited the more I learned about my own dear fatherland. I began to miss it terribly, the rigid and firm attitude toward time, the cool and polite disinterest mixed with unconditional respect from my fellow Swiss, even the official notes affixed to your bicycle informing you that you parked wrong.

Now bear with me for a while because the following is all theoretical and still not fully developed. I think that it is similar with people. If I just stay in my own country – if I constantly focus inward and am only concerned with myself – then I will not learn much about myself. But if I visit other people, if I meet others who are different, who see the world in different eyes, who do things differently, I might just learn something new about myself. If I use my eyes to look out of and try to feel what other feel and see somebody else’s viewpoint I might learn so much about who I am and what I am here to do.

I have been to many countries and I plan on visiting many more, I feel like it broadens my mind and helps me understand others better. So you might just stumble across me in the frozen north of Canada, stalking the “Takin” deer in northern Bhutan, or fighting off meter high, kneepad wearing arachnid in Australia. Until then I wish you the very best of happiness and the last cookie in the jar.

How to Annoy Introverts

2011-03-11T11:29:00.003+01:00

In this post you will learn about how to annoy most introvert and why you should actually avoid it.

Introversion is “the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one’s own mental life”. Introverts tend to be low-key, deliberate, and relatively passive in social situations. They often take pleasure in solitary activities such as reading, writing, drawing, watching movies, and using computers. The archetypal artist, writer, sculptor, composer, and inventor are all highly introverted. An introvert is likely to enjoy time spent alone and find less reward in time spent with large groups of people, though they tend to enjoy interactions with close friends. They prefer to concentrate on a single activity at a time and like to observe situations before they participate. Introverts are easily overwhelmed by too much stimulation from social gatherings and engagement. They are more analytical before speaking.

I’m pretty sure you have an idea what an introvert is, but there are a few things you should know: What is normal for an extrovert can be extremely annoying for or even rude towards an introvert.

Tell an introvert to be more social.  If you really want to annoy and even alienate your introvert friend you should force them to be social by telling them that they have to be more social. You should also mention that being social is what is expected of normal people.  Introverts prefer most of the time to stay at home reading a book or creating something than going out with a bunch of people at the pub. It’s not that an introvert doesn’t want to be with you, but more that he/she wants to be by him/herself instead. Introverts “recharge” by being by themselves.

Tell an introvert to talk more.  If you want an introvert to never talk to you again you should let them know that they should talk more and try to include them in every conversation.  Introverts tend to stick to the facts and what is practical. If you ask an introvert how the weather is, you will be either given a short answer like: “The weather is okay”; or they will give an explanation you would expect from a meteorologist.  Introverts love talking about their field of interest; but they have no interest in talking about something they have no interest in. When it comes to small talk introverts really don’t see the point of it, as it has no practical use to them.

Don’t let introverts join the conversation.  Keep in mind, it’s you who matters and if you let people speak you have lost! So don’t let any one speak or always interrupt people when speaking, especially if they are introverts. As introverts are really annoyed by this.  Introverts tend to be thinkers and very aware of themselves, therefore they prefer to think before they speak so they can present their view the best way. That is also why most introverts never join a conversation, as people who are mostly extroverted tend to speak non-stop and has some strange phobia towards a few seconds silence in a conversation. Extroverts tend to “fight” to get a word in between each other, making introverts see it as a waste of time and effort.  Introvert also dislike being interrupted when they are speaking. As they are thinkers some of what they say is something they have spent some time thinking about, so interrupting them can actually be very rude and hurtful.

Tell an introvert that this is fun.  If you find something very fun you should force an introvert to do it and tell him/her it is fun. And if they ask why it is fun, just let them know it’s fun because you say so and everyone else does it. Introverts hate being forced to do things. As mentioned, introverts are very aware of who they are and what they like. Telling an introvert that he/she should do this and that because that is expected, normal, nice and such rarely sounds logical to them, and is also a great way to alienate them. Introverts grow up by being told constantly they are strange, not normal, shy, not social and many other negatively loaded words and that they should change; they really don’t need to be told this any more. Telling someone who is actually normal to constantly change is extremely rude and selfish.

Tell an introvert to stop being so honest. If you want to insult and confuse an introvert you should tell him/her that they should stop being so honest. Introverts are thinkers and focus on facts. If something is green, it is green; simple as that. It’s not that introverts are selfish or lacking empathy, they look at the world as it is. They tend to be very logical beings and prefer to be honest than lie about something. If you can’t handle the truth, don’t ask an introvert for it; because you will for sure get an honest answer. And it’s not our fault you can’t handle it.

Don’t let an introvert read his/her book in peace. If you see an introvert working on something or reading a book, go bother them as that will really annoy them. As you read earlier, introverts needs time alone and solitude to “recharge” and to be happy. When they go into that state of mind they should never ever be bothered. There’s nothing more annoying to having to read a sentence 10 times, lose your focus when creating something or just losing focus in general because someone can’t relax their lips for a few minutes. Doing this to an introvert is like getting woken up in the middle of the night when you are sleeping. I’m pretty sure most of you don’t want your sleep to be disturbed. Same goes for an introvert’s alone time, we don’t want to be bothered. The more you let an introvert be by him/herself, the less they have to take mini breaks and they are more likely to spend time with you.

Let the introvert know what they are doing is a waste of time.  What ever they are doing, reading, creating or what not, let them know that it is a waste of time.  As with most things introverts do, it is very important to them. For the observer it might look strange, but for the introvert it makes perfect sense. Telling them what they are doing is childish and useless is like telling them they have no purpose in life. If what they are doing is not hurting anyone, let them do it. Just because they aren’t out binge drinking doesn’t mean they are not having fun. And what do you know; this might be their break through in life.

quare sum ego?

2011-03-08T15:15:00.003+01:00

"Where am i going? Where will i be in five years?" The 'where' question gets thrown around a lot it seems. People are obsessed with where they are in their social hierarchy, where they are in regards to others, and where they are on their precious career ladder. What class they are in in Yeshivah, which house, which car, which country and which gentleman's club. And if they don't know then they search hysterically; "I have to find my place". So much time and effort is wasted on that meaningless quest, and the answer is ultimately useless. Not 'where' sould be the question. The question should be the philosopher's favorite question: "Why?". Why am i? What might be the reason for my existence.

The 'where' is subject to so much uncertainty and change that you are bound to be disappointed when you chase down that road. It does not matter where Waldo is but why he is. Ask yourself why you are here and you might find the other questions easier to answer. That is if you have come to the conclusion that you do, indeed, exist.

Coffee

2011-03-04T12:56:00.003+01:00

It seems that i have stumbled off the path a little. I started blogging because i wanted to write about Philosophy and the philosophical quandaries that bother me from time to time. I know it sounds overly pretentious to say 'philosophical' like that, so maybe think of it more as introspective and pensive quotations and conclusions banging around in my skull. I just made it sound worst didn't i? Nevertheless i will try to write more about what i want to write about rather than worrying and sweating what you might like. Enjoy:

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university lecturer. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain-looking and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said: “If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the better cups and are eyeing each other’s cups.”

“Now, if Life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn’t change. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it.”

So please, don’t let the cups drive you…enjoy the coffee instead.

My Idol Stephen Fry a.k.a Albus Dumbledore

2011-02-27T13:11:00.006+01:00

I grew up with the magic and the adventures of Harry Potter. It may not surprise you to hear that i was a little literacy challenged as a child. I did not start reading until very late, and then it was only simple books in German. Enid Blyton and her series of "Fünf Freunde" come to mind. I could not speak or read a single word of English. In fact, my parents used it as a 'secret' language when speaking in our presents. And then came "Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen". I loved that book since the second time i was shown it. Like millions of children all over the world i could identify something within the book that spoke to me, maybe the characters or situations, i do not know. It was getting very hard to have to wait until the book was translated into German, but it was a necessity. I do not remember who first gave them to me, but somehow i ended up with the audiobook of one book or another in cassette tape format… in English. It was not long after that, that i was the very proud owner of all unabridged readings of all the Harry Potter books. I would listen to them over and over anywhere and anytime. Deep into the night that voice would lull me to sleep, entertain me during long car rides, and stop me from showering because the Walkman was not water-resistant. It taught me English the way no other thing could. When i went to my first american Yeshivah with my english accent so many people made fun of it that i soon changed over to a more international accent. I even smuggled the many tapes into Yeshivah, not out of spite or rebelliousness but because i did not want to leave behind my friend. The man belonging to that voice was brilliant i thought. He got the voice, tone, pitch, inflection and rhythm spot on for all of the characters, and especially my most loved one: Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Not only did he get his words so much meaning it was also the voice that, i felt, most belonged to the audiobook-guy. It was only years later, when i feel in love with Dr. Gregory House that i realized who that wonderful man is. You see, i was looking at all the Youtube videos of Hugh Laurie while he was still in England, and started looking at the "A Bit of Fry & Laurie". As soon as i heard Stephen Fry's voice it all came back to me. My inner child screamed with delight when i discovered that the man who read Harry Potter to me, word by word, was none other than Stephen Fry. As soon as i made that pleasurable discovery i downloaded every single book onto my ipod.

What must my 13 year old self have said if i told him that there would come a day when he would be able to fit that bulging bag of cassettes into a device smaller than his Walkman? Since then i listen to the whole series at least once a year, and the more i listen the more i have come to love Stephen Fry. Also, since that day i have read a lot of his delightful books, watched all his interviews, read all his blogs and watched him in any film capacity he ever appeared on: A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Blackadder, Stephen Fry in America, QIs, Documentaries, and when he appeared on Bones. The more i learnt about him the more i loved him. He is my role model and i wish with all my heart that i could sit at his feet and drink his wise words all day long. All of his opinions and interactions are based love, his love of everybody and everything no matter who and what. His verbal dexterity and richness of speech are also witness to his love for language and it is an intellectual pleasure whenever i hear him speak. The fact the he is a Jewish brother of mine, that he is a Homosexual, or his views on religion and the holy land do not matter to me, they are inconsequential to what he is. He is man filled with love and whose foundation of everything he says or does is love.

I have recently finished reading his Autobiography "The Fry Chronicles" where, using the letter "C" he tells us a little about his life. Tells me i should say because i feel that he wrote it having me in mind. He speaks honestly and clearly about his insecurities and addictions, his self-hatred and doubts and there is so much of it that i can identify with. That vulnerability, and that openness, made him my friend all the more so. I just want to go over to, hug him, and then ask him if it's all going to be okay.

Harry Potter is a world that gives us Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort. He is the very definition of evil, the definition of evil being the complete lack of love. Tom was a man who was born, not out of wedlock, but out of love. His witch mother, Merope Gaunt, gave his muggle father, Tom Riddle I, a love potion which made him run away with her and impregnate her. He did not do so out of love but because he was bewitched. There was no love, and that is what transferred onto their child, making him the most evil wizard ever. Love was also Lord Voldemort's downfall in the end, when he failed to realize that Severus Snape could love Lilly Potter so much that he would betray him. That and his fear of death. Albus Dumbledore was the complete opposite of him. He was love in person, wise and aged. Loving everybody and everything good, and fought in the name of love.

Maybe it is because of that that i thought Stephen Fry's voice most belonged to Dumbledore. They are of the same person. And it also explains why i always cry my eyes out when Dumbledore dies. He was good and loving, trusting and wise, emotional and sincere, as is Stephen Fry. And just like Dumbledore he is gay, which makes me very sad because it means that it is unlikely that his gene will continue in this word, and we need more of his DNA here.

All i can do is adopt his philosophies and apply them to everything i do in life and hope that it will make me a better person. Thank you for being you Stephen Fry!

On Bullies

2011-02-22T14:18:00.006+01:00

Being a 'different' child in a religious school is not an easy thing to be. It is neither as healthy nor as emotionally fulfilling as it is to be different when grown up. Knowing all the words to "Chim Chim Cher-ree", dreaming of becoming Lancelot, having non-Jewish friends and a clumsy grasp of the Hebrew language does not make you very popular. I dressed differently, brought a different lunch with me, knew different and acted dissimilarly. In a way i understand why i was bullied. No group, and especially the orthodox Jewish group, likes incompatibility and contrast. Don't get me wrong; this is not me crying and moaning at my childhood, my old school, or even my bullies. I am not complaining or cursing, i merely want to discuss it with you.

Verbal, emotional and physical bullying are part of any context in which humans interact with each other. It happens with different countries, cities, neighborhoods, synagogues and schools. Nor was I a minority, many other kids were bullied as well, with varying results. And now that we are all grown up and finally have that frontal lobe fully developed we know why bullies do what they do. They are scared. They cannot cope with their inadequacy and need to control their environment. Some see violence at home and others do it to impress. They usually have a very negative self-image of themselves and pick on others to correct that. Sometimes they are envious of their 'victim' and want to 'punish' him for his fortune. All in all, they are to be pitied and helped. After all, it is the ones that are hardest to love that need it the most, and i'd like to think that were i confronted with such behavior today i would have the wisdom and courage to do what is right and help the guy out.

When i was around 11 or 12 years old i began to change. I got bigger and stronger, and as soon as i discovered that i began to fight back. I am incalculably ashamed to say that i caused a lot of pain and trouble to some of my former abusers. I threw their insults back at them and belittled their existence with as much fervor and bravado as i could muster. I am remorseful and full of regret for those actions and even more so because i have yet to apologize to any of them. I should have been stronger and wiser, i should have tried to help and instead i did to them what they did to me. My face is beet-red of guilt and shame as i write this, but there you have it.

An yet, as evil it was of me to retaliate, it gave me peace in my mind. I gradually stopped hating them and their families and even became friends with a few of them. Maybe it was respect or a feeling of equality but i was not an avenger for long, and shook hands. Not with all of them though. There were some that were older than me and never suffered by my hands. Boys who bullied me all these years were out of my reach and i never parleyed with them in any way after my growth-spurt. I see them today, walking the streets of Zürich, attending Shul or bring their own children to school, and i cannot help but instantly blaze with barely controllable fury and hatred. There they walk, ignoring me, not remembering that they caused me pain and suffering, indifferent and smug. My hands always curl into fists when i see them or even think of them. And them i understand why i returned fire back then, why i hit back all those years ago. I wanted them to feel what i felt, i wanted them to hurt as much as i did, and when that abhorrent goal of mine was accomplished i forgave and forgot.

Being a somewhat mature person, i would not inflict any pain today, physical or otherwise. I know it to be pointless and unjust. They should not suffer for what they have done so long ago, especially when they did it out of self-hatred. But what i would like to do is sit down with them and tell them what they did. Look them in the eyes and explain how i felt and how much it hurt and that i forgive them. I know i would feel better and more at ease around them, i know it to be the right thing to do. But i cannot do it. In a way i am still scared of them, somehow i am still the frightened, akward little child i had been back then, and do not dare approach them. How cowardly of me, how pathetically insufficient.

All i can hope for is that someday i will have the courage to speak to them, there may come a day where it will not matter anymore and we will all sit around the table and laugh at our younger selves, but until then i will have to be content in hating their very molecular structure and avoid them as much as i can.

Pogonotrophy

2011-02-01T21:42:00.008+01:00

I do not wish to exclude anybody from reading this but be warned. I talk about mane's facial hair. So if you are okay with that read on, if not you could check out my new Photography Blog. Enjoy.

Rabbi Akiva writes: "The beard is the handsomeness of the face, and a wife is the joy in a man's heart.", The Prophet Muhammad viewed growing a beard as sunnah. The Greeks saw it as a sign of virility and wisdom. Romans thought it to be the hallmark of a individual with little regard to hygiene. Germanic tribes used the beard as a symbol of a strong and battle-seasoned man (picture viking with flaming red beard), the bigger the better. There were, and are, different styles of beards and they all mean different things to different people. What about me? The topic of beards -"you CAN cut them", "you CANNOT cut them" is a juicy one. Oh! The juiciness of it! Will i get into it? Nope. I am not fond of fighting or heavy discussions, that might offend or anger anyone. Even a thickly veiled criticism is enough to make me leave the room. But i will talk about my experiences with beards, my own and those belonging to others. But before this gets any further i do have to tell you something: I sleep with my beard under the blanket.

Being of Germanic and Scandinavian decent you might expect to hear me tell you that i had a beard early on in my Mesivtah days. Perhaps a big, black bushy one. I wish! I was always the oldest one in my class (being born in September) but i was always the one with the least beard. That is to say as smooth as a baby's posterior. You might call me a 'late bloomer'. Having dark brown hair (sorry for the overly male description of that shade but since i don't think any females want to read about the growth patterns of a guy i did not think i needed to use 'dark hazel') i naturally thought i was going to get a equally dark, if not darker, beard. No such luck. To this day i have no idea what color my beard is. Copper colored? Dark red? Blond? It depends on my mood i guess. I was always so envious of everybody else's beards. Lush, dark, long and waving in the breeze. Sigh. My transparent, ghostly hints of facial hair were always dismissed as 'peach-fuzz' and i felt disgusted with myself. Silly, i know, but back then it was at the very top of my worry list.

By the time i was halfway through Zal it finally sprouted. And to my delight it grew evenly. I was always anxious that i would end up looking like a tree with half of its leaves blown off. It was, and is, by no means majestic or awe-inspiering (which, i guess, explains the fact that my first ever post was dedicated to Pascal's wager and not my beard) but acceptable enough. I, in fact, love my beard. I adore every hair fiber of it. I am afraid, though, that it is a one way love affair. I shower my beard with love and what does it give me in return? The thickness and texture of steel wool. I could soak that bad boy in warm water filled with the best and most sensitive shampoo and conditioner twice a day for months and it will only be effective for maximum one hour, and that on a warm day.

When i was beard-less all i dreamt about was having that bushy, soft, pillow-like beard that would sing me to sleep during the morning 'Shiurim'. It would float gloriously in the autumn wind (why autumn? Because i need leaves in the wind okay!?) while i stood on a hill contemplating life itself. But no. Instead G-d gives me a beard that - i am convinced - is made of Teflon, gets entangled whenever i am looking away and itches like a bad word. I've tried oils, conditioners, regular moistening all of it, to no avail.

But it's not all bad. At least i can use it to clean dirty pans and pots after dinner. Plus i can hide food in there for long journeys or in the event of being stranded on an island. During studying i can put up to ten pens in there so i know where they are and don't have to look for them on the mess that is my desk. It is also wind-resistant so that's a plus during the cold winter days, and skiing. It absorbs most liquids that are unfortunate enough to to have made it all the way inside my mouth and my very cute niece can tear and pull without me feeling anything.

Apart from the physical and comical aspects of my beard there is also a very holy aspect to it. Bear with me for a while here, i know how annoying it can be. Chassidism attributes holiness to the beard, specifying that hairs of the beard symbolize channels of subconscious holy energy (13 modos horachamim) that flows from above to the human soul. Now i am not sensitive enough to pick up on those 'vibes' but i defiantly respect my beard in a very spiritual manner. Maybe it's because that is what has been drilled into me since age 14, but since i am still rebelling against everything anybody has ever 'drilled' into me i doubt it. I don't know what or how it is, but i consider hair to be sacred. Not only beard hair though. To the annoyance of my dear parents i am always reluctant to cut the hair on my skull. I love long hair and am proud to announce that my Jewfro is well underway. What is it about hair? Married women have to cover it, converts have to cut all of it before conversion, boys need to cover their hair as well in a manner of speaking. Plus we have to have side locks. The T'NaCh is filled with storied of hair. It gave Shimshon his superhuman strength and protected Korach from Devine punishment. I don't know why but i always pictured Noach as this really hairy dude. Nazirs and mourners, Avsholom and Esav. What is the deal with hair?

On Success

2011-01-30T21:52:00.004+01:00

There are several things i would like to discuss with you today my friends: In order not to make this look like a task list i will just freely and randomly talk about them, so feel free to interrupt me at any time. My posts, i think, always have a clear beginning, a precise point, and a understandable conclusion. Not this one. I write freely and unconstrained. I write what i think, and thought is complicated and random.

It is difficult to explain something when all your evidence for that thing is that you "feel" it. "I feel that most American tourists in Europe are generously proportionate and ignorant". Now i have no study or website to back my feeling up with fact or empirical proof, since it is a subjective observation and
may be due to my sarcastic and pessimistic nature. So now you know what i mean by it, let me tell you what i "fell": I feel that all over the world, and particularly in the western, enlightened part of it, there is a yearning for people to find answers. Answers to techniques that will make them happy and rich. In fact, probably in reverse order: rich then happy, because, of course, richness gives happiness, doesn't it? If only i had known when i was younger that chasing that one magical technique, that one answer, is fatal.

Now stay with me and try to keep an open mind when i say that goal orientation is absolutely disastrous in life. The very worst thing you can do in life is set yourself goals. Because two things can happen: one - you don't meet your goals and call yourself a failure. Two - you accomplish your goal and… what? You say "well here i am, and now what? i'm not happy. I've got this car, this position, this job, this address that i always wanted, and…what?" You have nowhere else to go. You are lost. You are going for something outside yourself, and that is not good. If your "work", your occupation, is nothing more than a means to go to Restaurants and buy things then that sounds more like a treadmill. Everyone has it in them to express that fundamental thing that they know they are inside; that rather beautiful, afraid, smart, person. That quite, shy personality which is so easily misinterpreted into aggression or depression or all kinds of horrible antisocial things. But deep inside we know we are huggable, lovable and sensitive, we want to be loved and to love. That person is yearning for fulfillment to be the person they know they can be. And it is that, that i should focus on. To be the very best me there is. To love and understand, to listen instead of speaking, to use my eyes to see out off and not to be seen into. It is that internal challenge that i should spend time dealing with, not what house or country i should live in, not what job and how much money i will have. And once i work on that i will finally be able to say "My work is more fun than fun".

And that's a constant journey, a process. It's not about acquiring this thing and that thing, and then getting to that place and learning this thing. To me it's about believing the fact that other people are always more interesting than me. The fact that i have role models, people i look up to and try to imitate. I think the one thing unsuccessful people have in common is that they constantly speak about themselves: "I need… I want… I think". And that is why nobody likes them and that is why they can never reach the place they want to reach. "I, me, my…" There is are wonderful english words for that: egocentric, egotistical, egoistical. All from the "ego" and if you just say "I" all the time you will not get anywhere. Again: in my humble opinion. If you are interested in other people, if you only use your eyes to observe others, you connect, and then you are interesting, then people what to be around you. It's then that people feel the warmth and the charm that you radiate because of your positive interest in them and their lives.

It is this attitude of looking inwards, that makes it hard for others to be around you. It's not like i know a lot about American television, but it always seems to be filled with people sitting in over-puffed, comfortable chairs on after noon talk-shows just babbling on about themselves: "I need - Whining about their lives - I'm beautiful, I'm lovely, I'm special and deep and intellectual and yet nobody loves me… I'm smart, I have needs" Oh! Shut up! Stop whining! I am more likely to hug and feel sorry for someone i know has tumor (Gott behüte) and is going through live not talking about it, smiling, trying not to embarrass anybody about it, than that hypochondriac always complaining: "I have a leg that hurts here when i do this, and pain here and these flashes on my back and the doctors don't know what it is and…" Oh Gosh! I'm sure it's terrible for you my dear but shut up!

Now of course i do my best and feel sorry for all kinds of people, but, to me, the real heroism is the one that inspite of his pain -be it physical or mental- goose on with his life and thinks of others and tries to help whenever he can. And it is then, that people want to be with you and share opportunities with you. It is that abnegation of self, efface yourself, don't talk, just don't say "I". If you can't stop saying "me" your are on the wrong track.

The Sum of my Knowledge

2010-12-20T20:47:00.004+01:00

Older people who are either unhappy with their age or what they have accomplished in their life so far always insist that i am but a newborn in an act they so carefully prepared for me. And even if they don't say it, i always get the feeling they quietly laugh at my philosophies and opinions. The precious few years i have been alive for have been educational however. I learned many a great thing about others. I have learned about dreams, hate, love, responsibility, sadness, joy and hangovers. And i would be remiss if i did not share some of these truths and observations. Enjoy:

1. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

2. I totally take back all those times i did not want to nap when i was younger.

3. There is a great need for a sarcasm font.

4. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history should you die.

5. Was learning cursive really necessary?

6. Google maps need to start their directions at number 5. I'm pretty sure i know how to get out of my own neighborhood.

7. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told how he died.

8. I can'r remember the last time i wasn't at least a little tired.

9. Bad decisions make for good stories.

10. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after blue-ray? I don't want to start my collection all over again just for gamma-ray DVD

11. I am always terrified when i exit a word document and it asks me if i want to save any changes to my 20 page essay that i swear did not make any changes to.

12. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so i know not to answer when they call.

13. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

14. Sometimes, I'll watch an old movie that i watched as i child (watch The Jungle Book again and thank me later) only to realize i had no idea what the heck was going on when i first watched it.

15. I would rather have the 10 knife-like, overloaded plastic cut into my hand than take two trips to bring my groceries in.

16. The only time i look forward to a red light is when i am trying to finish a text.

17. I have a hard time deciphering the difference between hunger and boredom.

18. <-- The amount of times it is appropriate to lean forward and say "What?" before you just smile and nod because you still did not understand a word they said.

19. Shirts, undershirts, underpants, they all get dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, you can wear them until 5 days after they rip.

20. The kids in the classes younger than you get dumber and dumber each year.

21. There is ALMOST no worse feeling than that millisecond you are sure you are going to die after leaning back too much on your chair.

22. Sometimes i'll look down at my watch three consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

23. Even under ideal condition people have trouble finding their keys, cell phone, hammer, or even their own clothes. But i'd bet my *** everyone can find and push their snooze button from three feet away, in about 1.3 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.

May my accumulated knowledge guide you onto higher heights and give you comfort and warmth in the upcoming cold and uncertain nights.

On Making Coffee Cake

2010-10-07T23:28:00.011+02:00

As my house is being overrun by eager guests for my sister's wedding next week I am a modern day Napoleon exiled to the Elba of the basement, where only dark thoughts and surprisingly fit mice are my company. Maybe it is that-in addition to my constant need to be approved by strangers-that brings out the blogger in me.

It is unfortunate that I was unable to take advantage of Switzerland's excellent school system but was instead stuck in The "Jüdische Schule" which is a Private (and therefore incompetent) jewish school. But there was one subject my revered teacher attempted to pass on. It is something elusive to an American but as easy as ABC to a normal person (that's right). The Metric System.

Among all the nations of the world, only four great powers-Brunei, Myanmer, Yemen, and the USA-have not yet adopted the french system for measurement. When i first entered an american yeshivah i struggled quite hard to understand the english system (which even the english don't use anymore). It seemed deliberately perplexing and even my american friends had trouble explaining it to me. I thought: "Maybe my way only seems to make sense to me because that is what i am used to, maybe their headache-inducing system makes just as much sense as mine". But as they say: "You live, you learn".

To illustrate let me blow some dust off my american cook book and read to you the recipe to a coffee cake:

1 1/3 cups sour cream
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 3/4 cups cake flour
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter

Now suppose that you want to make half that recipe (for reasons unknown b/c coffee cake rocks). Your assignment: Cut the ingredient amounts in half.

Let's see, now. Half of one and one thirds is, er... Well, half of one and one-fourth is... um...Half of one and three-fourths... Well, there are eight ounces in a cup (or is it sixteen), so half of one and three-fouths cups of flour is one and three-fourths times eight divided by two, or... Why don't i just take half of two eggs? I can do that in my head.

Good luck. Now imagine a brave new world in which everything is in metric units. The coffee cake recipe would work like this:

320 grams sour cream (half: 160g)
6 grams baking soda (half: 3g)

etc. etc. Simplicity itself, no? Now all you have to know is what in the world a gram is right? Not really. If in that brave new world you had a gizmo that measures everything, what do you care what a gram? Do you really know what an "ounce" is? All you know is that it's a certain amount of stuff that some person or persons unknown, for reason unknown, decided upon a long, long time ago.

Moreover, you must constantly wrestle with three kinds of ounces: fluid, avoirdupois, and troy; and they're all different. They don't even measure the same thing; two of them measure weight and one measures volume.

A gram is a unit of weight. Weighing things out on a scale is a lot more accurate and reproducible than filling up measuring cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons, especially with messy stuff like butter. Okay, so you'll have to buy a kitchen scale. Serious chefs already weigh out their ingredients.

Now, out of the kitchen and into the workshop. You have a board that measures seven feet, nine and five-eighths inches, and you need to cut it into three equal lengths. Again, good luck with the calculation. (The answer, which you can arrive at in substantially less than an hour, is two feet, seven and seven thirty-seconds inches, more or less.) In the brave new world, you would measure the board with a meter stick and find that it is 238 centimeters long. One third of that is 79.3 centimeters. End of problem.

Note that you didn't have to know or care that there are 2.54 centimeters in an inch, any more than you had to know that there are 28.35 grams in an ounce when you weighed out your cake ingredients. just think of a centimeter as the distance between two adjacent numbers on the stick and a gram as one of those little divisions on the scale.

Many people despair of ever learning the metric system because the units-the grams and centimeters and so on-are hard to visualize in terms of familiar ounces and inches. In other words, it's the conversion between the old and new systems that is troublesome. And indeed it is. Who wants to keep messing around with 2.54s and 28.35s all the time? There's no doubt that it is going to be terribly awkward to convert everything in the United States-from recipes to road maps, not to mention all of your industrial production facilities-to the metric system. Nobody argues with that.

But that's the wrong reason for resisting the metric system. Don't you now have to perform ridiculously difficult conversions every day in the English system? Twelve inches in a foot; 3 feet in a yard; 1760 yards in a mile; 16 avoirdupois ounces in a pound, 16 fluid ounces in a pint; 2 pints in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon, and so on. Not to mention wrestling with pecks, bushels, barrels, fathoms, knots and literally hundreds of other crazy units.

In the metric system, there is only one unit for each type of measurement. And the only conversion numbers you'll need are 10, 100, and 1000; not 3, 4, 12, 16, or 5,280. There are 100 centimeters in a meter, 1000 meters in a kilometer, 1000 grams in a kilogram, and so on. Using metrics is simplicity itself, as evidenced by the fact that every schoolchild and housewife throughout 94 percent of the world's population has no trouble at all with it.

I'd Rather Be...

2010-05-04T23:17:00.003+02:00

Oh how much fun I had I Yeshivah! I made friends, learned the appropriate amount of our holy Torah, and had a heck-load of fun. The variety of Bochurim is what made it all so interesting I think. But no matter how different we all were, we knew one thing for sure: "I would much rather be...". This The-grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side mentality seemed to be universally popular. This Bochur would much rather be in a different Yeshivah, the other at home, and that one would much rather study at University (Gasp). But it is not only in Yeshivah where that wish is present. I experience it every day: When studying i would much rather be in my bed, and when working i would rather be (i would write "in bed" but that would taint your opinion of me) skydiving.

The correlation must be high between these bochurim who take out their cell phones while eating to send text messages or answer a call while mid-conversation with a friend. Aside from doctors and parents awaiting calls from their respective patients, this now-popular antisocial social maneuver might as well come with its own little wish-a phone sticker-that says, ''I'd rather be talking to this guy." Add that to the self-inflicted live-time updates of Twitter and the Facebook phenomenon, and you have a perfect environment for the rebirth of the tragic hero of the Me Generation, Narcissus.

Christopher Lasch's 1979 bestseller, The Culture of Narcissism, brought to light the empty self-indulgence created by an information age. He believed that an overabundance of information actually resulted in a weaker sense of self and thus an incapacity to form meaningful relationships. You have to truly love yourself before you can love another. Worse yet, the bytes ofinformation zipping around today make it seem like Lasch wrote of an age in which people communicated on the third-grade science class phones of two paper cups connected by a string. Facebook came around at just the right time, as psychologists noted a 30 percent increase in Americans personality test scores for narcissism from 1982 to 2006. They couldn't have anticipated that in the "What is Xdoing now?" announcement section ofX's Facebook page, when X types "Is having a baby"," that he was actually in the operating room texting during the contractions of his own wife. You, can also find such entries as " ... is being robbed," and " ... is late for work and can't find his keys." It's like people are creating maps of their lives instead of actual lives, akin to the vacationers who film the entire vacation to watch it later, so they can see the vacation that they had, while texting their friends about it all. But you're there now. You're with them right now. You can actually do it now.

The ever-elusive Now. Time flies when you're having fun. This "fun" often results from "living in the now." Much of our internal angst derives from our constantly juggling what we coulda, woulda, shoulda done, with what could, would, should do, all the while, doing: driving a car at sixty miles per hour within inches of others doing the same ("Was I even driving just now?"). Fear results from anticipating something that might happen in the future, and anxiety as a result of what did happen in the past.

I guess what i am trying to say (i am not sure myself anymore) is that living and focusing on the Now is what counts. So what if you'd rather be someplace else, that is all in the future. And who cares if you wasted your past year just sleeping in, that is not relevant. What matters is Now, the place you are at right now is what counts. Make me proud.

HugSameach

2010-02-24T12:16:00.005+01:00

It was planned months in advance; the costume, nosh, who would get some and how how i would get the most, the exact amount of explosives and the most hazardous environment to set them off in. As the day grew closer i would wake up in the middle of the night, sweating, clutching my sheriff's badge and Indian war bonnet close to my chest. In the final week i would even sleep in my outfit, and dream of mountains of candies. Waking up on Purim day is like waking up in heaven. Strangers would stop by just to drop off baskets of delicious foods, and my parents were too busy with preparing for the big meal to notice that i made it my ambition to eat myself sick, and then some. I reached the tip of Mount Candy and only descended in time to get yelled at for inducing heart attacks with my miniature TNT.

It all looks slightly different as a Bochor, does it not? All of a sudden Alcohol and nicotine become a major component in this glamourous holiday, pushing aside costume and candy. There were always three types of Bochurim on that day. 1) Committed, 2) Grown up, and 3) Colorful:

The committed Bochur is the one that plans ahead a little when it comes to a costume and he usually wears a matching ensemble of clothing, a borrowed army-suit perhaps. They were also generally older, around the age when dressing up becomes cool again. Careful not to ruin their perfect, ironed getup, they were somewhat hesitant to give another the opportunity to use him as a footstool, by falling asleep under the table after the fourth cup.
I was never really sure what to make of the "grown up" Bochurim who considered dressing up as immature. They seemed to take advantage of the liberal dress-code of that day to finally wear jeans, a tie, colored shirt, and - depending on rate of facial hair growth - paint on a goatee. They also always smelled of some sort of smoke and were always the first to show up for the big meal. They were quite useful when you needed someone to go get some more Mashkeh or to escort Rabbi-doesn't-have-a-strong-liver to the ER (possibly at the same time).
"Colorful" is an understatement when describing the last category. They always remembered Purim a day before and went on a a midnight-Purim-shopping-spree, returning with shouts of laughter, 50 Agurot plastic hats, orange overalls, extra large clown shoes, fog horns and plenty of Mashkeh. The colorful ones were always the happiest and craziest ones of the asylum. Just having three of them in your van to the army base, was like sitting in a stadium filled with dancing giants. Always generous with a joke and Israel's cheapest wine they were my favorite group.

Maybe it's because as a grown up i can get sweets whenever i want (and i do) or because i can't eat to many of them without looking up the emergency number of my dentist, but Mount Candy has now been replaced by Mount Bedmore, and my costume consists of colored hair-spray, a hat that i use as a pillow and (hopefully) one of my mother's old Shaitels. Back then i would fast a week before to make room for the big meal, now i eat as much as i can so that it will soak at least some of the alcohol.

Let me finish by wishing you all the best Purim of your life, may your colons be stuffed with expensive food and drink, may you wake up without dry puke on your face, may you be protected from all harm, be it drunken or otherwise, and may you all be back to your regular schedules within a week.

Shidduchim versus Love

2010-02-16T21:58:00.008+01:00

Maybe it's because i am getting older (in years) or because my friends all talk about it, but it seems to me that the words marriage and dating have been thrown around a lot lately, in many languages and countries. Questions like "How do i know he/she is the one?", "I don't feel ready for this", or "But what about love?" are asked quite often lately, the latter usually with an accusatory tone of voice. Shidduchim, shadchonim, waiting, self-doubt, referrals, resumés, depression, more waiting, desperation and general weariness towards the rules forces upon us are all titles of the chapters in the handbook to this rather irksome game.

Should i talk about the "Shidduch crisis"? Since i do not know anything about it i probably should not, especially since i am still fighting the Israelis-almost-smashing-their-dust-covered-cars-into-people crisis, and THAT one has been going on since the invention of the Israeli and is an ACTUAL crisis. How do you know he/she is the one? You can't. You don't feel ready for this? No mature person ever feels ready for this. And what about love? Ahhhh. What about love?

Passion, infatuation, romance, "the hots", obsessive love, beer goggles... These are the words we use to describe those feelings of ecstasy, elation, bliss and rapture that almost eyery person will experience in some way at some time in their lives. Even us holy and superior Jews. With them come the feelings of anguish, distress, pain, agony, torment and grief.

I remember the times in Yeshivah where - towards the end of the Farbrengen - a bochur would turn to the other and ask him in a teary voice "What is the meaning of it all?". Five chairs over another is yelling in disgust "Are you alive because you are alive or because you were not run over by an Israeli yet?!" It is usually in a state of inebriation and general befuddled-nes that we feel the need to enunciate these deep and philosophical queries. You are then confounded by the wise and simple answer your drinking partner slurs back at you, and have, however, no recollection of it the following morning. "What is love?" is not usually heard on those particular meetings but is voiced in every Pub, bar, club and college bathroom everywhere else.

My answer? Love is is a combination of dopamine, oxytocin, testosterone, oestrogen and norepinephrine, or in other words it is not important. Once our brain has identified a suitable partner (based on certain criteria) the brain goes into overdrive to produce the chemicals necessary to create the environment to attract that person. The criteria for this identification is things like "can she bear healthy a and strong offspring?" or "can he protect and supply all that is necessary for survival?" Important during dangerous and threatening times where we fear for our lives and want to pass on our genes, but altogether an undesirable start to a life-long sentence, since the initial hormonal discharge subsides after a while.

It follows that marrying somebody because you fell in love with them is not a wise decision. Throughout human history -up until the 19th century- marriages were an arranged event based on wealth, status, appearance, family rivalries and politics. We Jews have added a few of our own: Yichus, apparel, Hechsherim, type of Jew and (most importantly perhaps) Yarmulka size, etc. Of course it is annoying that the parent's call your old roommates and ask them to report all the dirt on you. The Jew looks at it like a business project (as he should) and we all know how the Jew does business. By the time the awkward couple meets they know enough about each other's goals, background, hidden skeletons and clothing size to ensure their survival in the window-less cell that is marriage. It is the most logical way to do it if you are looking to get chained up. And the truth is that the pain you go through while taking the Shidduch route is probably minuscule compared to the anguish of a failed marriage or relationship.

As much as it pains me to disembark from my Jane-Austin-boat of falling in love, i have to. It is only logical and will save me a lot of time and pain in the long run. I put all of my eggs into the system-basket (shudder).

On How To be Lazy II

2010-01-06T21:49:00.003+01:00

Laziness is the key to success. Here are the rules of being lazy:

1. Never do anything. If you wait around long enough, someone else will do it.

2. Don't move. Moving is overrated.

3. Never run. Running is the worst thing you can do. I had to run once.. big mistake.

4. If something is not in your reach, you don't need it. Before you get up to get something across the room next time, think. Do you really want to get up and walk all the way there and all the way back to get it? Yeah, I know. I felt stupid for moving all those times.

5. Don't have an opinion. Opinions are thoughts, and thoughts are work.

6. Don't work. Working is for suckers. Be a Mashgiach if you can, they never do anything.

7. If you have to move, fuss about it. Make it well known that you're pissed off because you have to move. Sigh a lot. Drag your feet and arch your back at 60 degrees (bad posture helps you to conform to the shapes of couches when you sit down, and it makes you look tired).

8. Sleep as much as you can. Contrary to common sense and popular belief, sleeping is very productive.

9. Don't talk. Talking requires the movement of your jaw.. way too much work.

10. If you have to work, do a half-assed job at it. Example: If you have to rake leaves, push them out into the road or into your neighbor's yard. If you have a riding lawn mower, run over them a few times until the pieces are small enough to hide in between blades of grass.

I have more rules, but this is taking more effort than I thought. I'll update this later.. if I'm not too tired.

A Really Big שמש

2009-12-11T15:00:00.005+01:00

We call it Kelzenzihen, means 'candle pulling' literally. Its been practiced many years here in Switzerland. Making your own candle, starting with a string of wick, is one of the things i missed when in yeshivah. I have no time whatsoever to elaborate since i light the first light in a few minutes, but here are some stats: Beeswax, 37cm long, took 4 days to make. I wish you all a really enjoyable Chanukah, filled with light, doughnuts, latkes, entertainment and most importantly: sleep.

Ps: I have seen the errors in my way and repented.

It's Nice To Meet You

2009-12-07T16:49:00.012+01:00

As with everything, being a card-carrying member of the clique called Chabad, has both good and evil in it. Anticipating much rebuke i will stay out of the evil and

focus only on the good. No, i don't mean our surprising ability to proces large amounts of ethanol, or getting away with wearing a hat that looks like it survived the war. I'm talking about the join-Chabad-see-the-world policy. While many consider that to be bad PR for Chabad, i think it's splendiferous! Travel broadens, and sharpens the mind, opening it up to different people's habits and customs, languages and religion which, i think, is important.

One of my least favorite parts of traveling, however, is the plane ride. Not only because i suffer from extreme acrophobia but also because there is always one more Jew on board. Whenever the plane is roaring down the runway i remember the "hachlotos toivois" i made on the last plane-ride, if the higher power could please let me live, and my ability to forget them as soon as i pick up my luggage at arrivals. It's a sweaty, uneasy time for me, filled with stomach cramps and epiphanies on how to improve my spiritual life.

You would think that, at such a time, evil forces would let me be, squirming in my too-small seat, with sweaty palms and nervous glances out the window, but no such luck. Sensing my wish to expire, the one other Jew feels compelled to grant me that wish by coming over (if he is not already sitting next to me because he can't sit next to the 90 year old lady) and opens his mouth,which, to me, symbolizes the opening of Pandora's box. What follows is an interrogation that would make an experienced KGB agent blush. It is at that time that my seat changes to a medieval torture chair.

Without mercy or regard for my wish to be left to suffer by myself he asks me my name, how it's spelled, where i was born, where i live, my mother's maiden name, father's job, in-laws (if any), educational history, level of Jew, where i'm going to stay once we land and if he please could have my bite-sized frozen excuse for bread, wrapped six times in my kosher meal.

And it always comes down to if i know his wife's cousine in Israel, or his assurance that he knows my Rosh Yeshivah, by first name. When he is done with, what in 1933 Germany was called "questioning", he returns to his seat or holy book and is quiet. The only information that i have on this gent is that he apparently never brushed his teeth and has no respect for the english language.

Sadly, this sort of encounter is not specific to plane-rides. It happened to me in Germany, Venice, New York, England and even Switzerland. It is how Jews behave when meeting another member of the Tribe (generalizing, not all Jews... yadah yadah). Usually it is the older one that is the interrogator, but does not have to be.

I am a little uncomfortable with this method of introduction, for i was taught that when meeting someone for the first time you shake his hand (real handshake, no wet-dead-handshake) make eye contact, greet him, and tell him your name, you then listen to his name, commit it to memory, and find a common topic to talk about. Unless it's a lady, then avoid eye contact at all costs and pretend she does not exist.

My modus operandi has startled many a Bochur at the Yeshivahs i attended, their confused faces were always a source of happiness for me. But what is it with, what Hershy calls "Jewish Geography"? Are Jews genetically rude? Can it be traced to their lack of victorian upbringing and education or does it go deeper?

We Hebrews did not exactly have an easy history, and we can't even blame it on the Torah, for we have been enslaved hundreds of years before Mt. Sinai.

German Philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) is famous not only for his ridiculous hair-style but also his phrase: "This is the best of all possible worlds". Like most philosophical ideas, it was misunderstood and ridiculed. Leonard Bernstein's 1956 musical, Candide had it's own version of scoffing. The show's best-known song, "the Best of All Possible Worlds" has Pangloss and the cast sing Richard Wilibur's lyrics praising war as a blessing in disguise, because it unites us all-as victims.

We have always had a very strong sense of unity in face of oppressions, alienations and killings, a feeling that we are one big sicilian family. This co-depended and unified behavior is a natural reaction to subjugation, even healthy. So when meeting another Jew, he feels it important to establish himself as a part of that group, desperately proving that his bloodline can be traced to our dear father Avraham. It is done in the traditional way of a member of a surviving people: Fast and rude. As unhappy as i am with how they do it, i am thrilled at why they do it. I feel comforted by this I-belong-to-the-tribe craze, for it tells me of the pride the other one feels for being Jewish.

Maybe it's because of that little Jane Austin part of me but i will carry on my M.O and continue to interrupt the interrogator after his first question and turn the gun on him.

Join me on the dark side my son.

Forecast on Morality

2009-12-01T13:37:00.004+01:00

Baruch Benedict Spinoza-you thought i was done with him did you not? Think again-was a jewish philosopher in 17th century Amsterdam. He is now famous for his magnum opus "Ethica" which was published after his untimely demise. Now instead of turning this post into a discussion on mind-body dualism and the existence of G-d, i will extract the part where he writes about the definition of good and bad: "So everyone, by the highest right of Nature, judges what is good and what is evil, considers his own advantage according to his own temperament... ."

This means that the difference is merely one of personal inclination. Socrates argued that which we call evil is merely ignorance and that good is that which everyone desires. It seems that what people call "bad" and "good" is relative (TRS and e: Don't, please) so to say, for example, "he is a good person" is a meaningless sentence unless you, and the person saying it, have the same idea of "good" and "bad". When it comes to morals, i of course subscribe to Moral Absolutism and try to look at Torah when i need to know what is good and bad, but here i am talking about talking.

Bad and good can also refer to quality e.g bad news or good food, which, of course is also relative to the person saying it. Therefore, saying that the weather is "bad" is, again, meaningless unless you and the listener both agree what "bad" weather is.

So lets get started (yes, that was only the introduction):

I LOVE rain, dark clouds, strong winds, hail, snow, fog, darkness and cold temperature, preferably all at the same time. When it's hot and sunny out i feel like im in a small room where the celling is so low i can't fully stand in it and the walls to close to lie in, no windows and no sounds (a.k.a yeshivah dorms). The sun is my enemy and the moon my friend, clouds and rain make me feel alive and vigilant, i feel like running outside and dance and run around town (it has happened). Most people i share this with have a similar reaction as when i tell them i don't eat meat "You're joking!". I don't understand why they are cheerful during the summer and they can't comprehend why i would wanna make "khulles" in puddles at 4 degrees.

Today (and by the time you are reading this, yesterday-unless you are reading this some other day- monday november 30th) was first snow fall in Zürich. I immediately jumped on my bike and rode around for two hours,taking it all in. Thick, white, cold, drops of magic gently make their way towards me, dancing almost. To me it is like someone talking, communicating in a pure and noble way, through nature, inviting me to join in on the celebration. The 1812 overture plays in full volume and the snow dances to it's rhythm. I could stay out here forever.

The morning after is almost as majestic as the night. Trees, rooftops, cars, roads and fields are all lovingly and gently tucked in with a white flawless blanket, and now radiate a calm and uncontaminated air that effects the whole city. It absorbes the usual noise and negativity, common to such a big metropolis and covers the evil past in a graceful manner.

When in the USA i was always disgusted at the fervor with which the city cleared its roads 10 seconds after snowfall began. The tons of ice salt that are dumped on both street and sidewalk made it all look sickening. It also always ruined my shoes and boots. Here, somehow, it looks like they did not want to disturb snow's peaceful slumber, even if it means loosing five minutes. (I'll do some research on the difference in snow removal between USA and Switzerland and get back to you.)

Snow, you will always be my friend, no matter what. Here is what it all looked like from my window.

Venn's Social Network Diagram

2009-11-30T23:27:00.001+01:00

To Giving The Finger

2009-11-30T13:20:00.007+01:00

Five slender jointed parts attached to either hand. That's ten fingers per person. They have always (I've had them for as long as i can remember) played a very important role in my life. Most of the mistakes in my life-although orchestrated by my oversized head-were played out by my fingers. With them i also always know where i am up to in learning (gemara pages are huge) and put on tefillin every day. Could you imagine what it would be like without them? What, for example, would nose picking be like? To nonverbally insult someone without that important finger would be challenging. Or picture what my blog would look like if i did not have fingers (although it would explain a lot).

Be you a surgeon or painter, pianist or chef, garbage collector or flag-pole assistant, you depend on your fingers. Mainly your thumb and forefin

ger, but don't worry, i will not talk about evolution... yet.

Fingers tell you a lot about a person. Sometimes they tell you want kind of work he does, if she is married or in which jar i had my hands in 10 minutes ago. Science has long ago rejected palm reading as accurate or sane for that matter. Now science has it's own version of palm reading, and far more accurate than it. Studies now show that everything from sporting prowess to academic ability, and sexual orientation to susceptibility to disease can be assessed by your finger length.

Here's a hand-on experiment you can try right now. Hold your hand in front of your face and try to keep your fingers absolutely straight. Now notice the difference in length, if any, between your index and your ring finger. The ratio between the two has been shown to be linked to exposure of the male hormone testosterone in the womb.

On average men tend to have longer ring fingers than women, who have longer index fingers. The longer the ring finger the more masculine any baby with this ratio will be, regardless of whether it's male or female. The ring finger has a greater amount of testosterone receptors than the other fingers, and the index finger has more estrogen receptors. A high level of testosterone is what drives people into certain professions, is responsible for sexual orientation and "libido". Now we know why people with longer ring fingers tend to excel in sports.

Since the length of the index finger is tied in with estrogen it explains why women with longer index fingers are more fertile than women who don't. It also indicates (in both male and females with that finger ratio) better verbal skills, and a bigger aptitude for maths and physics than those of opposite finger ratio. Another study has shown that males with longer ring fingers earn 11 times more than the ones with shorter ring fingers.

Having said that, i can say with confidence that my ring finger is longer than it's index brother.

How about you?

13 Steps to "Frying" Out

2009-11-27T13:16:00.004+01:00

In Yeshivah i wasn't exactly a star pupil. I did not belong to the group that somehow managed to learn, farbreng and d

o mifzayim day and night, and many of the new, promising students were warned to stay away from me. I don't think i was that bad, but i

did have a library of manuals and complete idiot's guides on various scientific subjects, also known as "chochmas chitzonius".

Many well-meaning fellahs would try to save me from-what they saw as-a slippery slope downhill.

Warnings of "sliding down a slippery slope" are the rage for politicians, rabbis, and parents. It's the classic one-thing-leads-to-another-and-before-you-know-it-you're-in-deep-doo-doo argument. The beauty part of this type of argument is that you can lay down just about any outcome at the bottom of the slope as long as you stipulate quasi-believable steps along the way. It contends that event A will trigger a chain reaction of events leading, eventually to an undesirable event. The thing is that most SSAs are fallacious, and illogical, and therefore invalid.

I was warned many times that having a medical manual or watching a movie (don't try this at home kids) would lead me down the slope to being "fry". There were many rules, unspoken and spoken, that would prevent you from that horrible end. I have taken some of those rules, categorised them in terms of severity and compiled a Slippery slope that will lead you to frying out.

This post is comedic in nature and is in no way an encouragement to follow those steps, leave the holy tribe, or brake rules in any way (you know you want to, all the cool kids are doing it).

1) Learn Gemarah without Rashi

2) Come late to seder regularly

3) Interrupt seder for bathroom, drink, sleep etc. as much as possible

4) leave farbrengens early, drunk if possible

5) Go to the Pizza store at least once a week

6) Eat the pizza at the store

7) Get a cell phone

8) Go outside without your hat and jacket

9) Don't show up to farbrengens

10) Get a mp3 player, (bonus if it has radio)

11) Smoke cigarets

12) Wear a smaller yarmulka

13) Go to chicago to study architecture

Did i forget anything?

Have a great shabbos dear bloggers.

Errare Humanum Est

2009-11-23T11:16:00.014+01:00

Being that I am still an amateur in both blogs and writing i got some advice form a web site, and i will try to apply those tipps in to my posts in the future, let me know if the change is not to your liking.

Kids. They are our hope for a better future, they carry our genes and assure the survival of the human race. But no matter how cute they are, and no matter how much we love them, they are annoying. They pick up on the stuff we try to hide from them and blow the things we want to teach them into the wind. They run around with little regard to their health and our lack of patience. If only there was a way to keep them in check.

Good news, there is. No I’m not talking about this, I am talking about lying to them. But lie is such a strong word, so let’s call it “Old Wives' Tales”. It’s easy: They believe most of the stuff we tell em, so why not tell them that walking around in the winter with wet, uncovered hair will give them a cold. Or that gum takes 7 years to pass through their digestive system. That way they will always dry their hair and we won’t have to buy so much gum. Want your kid to eat more carrots? Tell him that it improves eyesight. Find the endless knuckle cracking to be the one thing you needed to make you go shoot people? Why not tell her that it will lead to Arthritis.

Being that we (parents, older siblings, uncles or aunts etc) are their idols they not only believe it, but it is something that stays with them for life, allowing them to pass it on to their children. I'm ok with OWTs, for two reasons:

They get kids to do as we please
When grown up, those kids have the ability to verify the accuracy of those tales, teaching them never to take knowledge without proof.

What I am NOT comfortable with is OWTs that are used in school books and looked at as common knowledge. I am of course talking about heliocentrism vs geocentrism. It is astounding how many people still believe with absolute certainty that the earth revolves around the sun.

The theory that earth revolves around the sun might have been accepted at the time of Galileo, but today with Einstein's spacial theory of relativity and Mach's Principle (to name a few) anybody who says that science tells us otherwise is simply to lazy or dense to look into the matter, and probably still wait an hour after their sandwich before going swimming.

So it seems that wether the sun revolves around the earth or vice versa simply depends on how you look at it. A few centuries after copernicus, a chassid asked R. Israel of Ruzhin what he thought of this business, perhaps expecting the Rebbe to deny that such ideas were in keeping with Torah and that any one who went along with it was a heretic.

However his reaction was very unusual. When he was informed of this, the Rebbe remained completely composed and his response was a very special one. He said that whether the earth revolves around the sun or the sun revolves around the earth depends on the service of the tzaddikim. The answer to the question of "What revolves around what?" is not an absolute answer. If, for instance, the tzaddikim in this generation would serve God in a manner in which it would be correct to see Pluto as the center of the solar system, then in some mysterious way scientific discoveries would adapt to reflect that change.

"Go and change the world my little ones, change the paths of planets, and change them to good" That is what we should tell our kids, that and not everything we tell them is true :)

(if you klicked on all the links you get a price)

I Want To Be Six Again

2009-11-22T11:33:00.002+01:00

To Whom it May Concern:

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult, in order to accept the responsibilities of a 6 year old. The tax base is lower. I want to be six again.

I want to go to the park and think it's the best place in the world.

I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make waves with rocks.

I want to think sweets are better than money, because you can eat them.

I want to play kickball during recess and stay up on Pessach night, feeling like a grown up.

I long for the days when life was simple. When all you knew were your colors, the addition tables and simple nursery rhymes, but it didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't care.

I want to go to school and have snack time, recess, gym and field trips.

I want to be happy, because I don't know what should make me upset.

I want to think the world is fair and everyone in it is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible.

Sometime, while I was maturing, I learned too much. I learned of nuclear weapons, prejudice, starving and abused kids, lies, unhappy marriages, illness, pain and mortality.

I want to be six again.

I want to think that everyone, including myself, will live forever, because I don't know the concept of death.

I want to be oblivious to the complexity of life and be overly excited by the little things again.

I want movies to be something I watch for fun, not something used for escape from the things I should be doing.

I want to live knowing the little things that I find exciting will always make me as happy as when I first learned them.

I want to be six again.

I remember not seeing the world as a whole, but rather being aware of only the things that directly concerned me.

I want to be naive enough to think that if I'm happy, so is everyone else.

I want to walk down the beach and think only of the sand beneath my feet and the possibility of finding that blue piece of sea glass I'm looking for.

I want to spend my afternoons climbing trees and riding my bike, letting the grownups worry about time, the dentist and how to find the money to fix the old car.

I want to wonder what I'll do when I grow up and what I'll be, who I'll be and not worry about what I'll do if this doesn't work out.

I want that time back.

I want to use it now as an escape, so that when my computer crashes, or I have a mountain of paperwork, or two depressed friends, or a fight with my parents, or bittersweet memories of times gone by, or second thoughts about so many things, I can travel back and build a snowman, without thinking about anything except whether the snow sticks together and what I can possibly use for the snowman's mouth. So listen up Mr. J. M. Barrie, "hook me up, if you know what i mean".

I want to be six again.

Politics 101

2009-11-15T15:43:00.004+01:00

For many years i have hated Politics, and still do. By that i mean both the unreal, moronic, ignorant, dense, foolish, dull-witted, slow, and idiotic politics as well as government politics. I never saw a point in it, apart from giving morons something to talk about at dinner. It's not just pointless but destructive: families, friends, communities and countries are fighting over politics and it drives people away from each other. But i also enjoy learning for knowledge's sake, especially if you prove to be ignorant in matters of politics people think you are bonkers. So i threw myself into the study of politics and after 30 minutes this is what i got. I will illustrate each kind with the help of my two pet-cows: Steve and Groucho.

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

What in The World...?

2009-11-15T11:17:00.004+01:00

After the horror that was the vegetarian post, i have given up writing about myself and will now dedicate posts solely to my believes, theories and philosophies... Wait, is that the same thing? Anyway, it took my many days to write this so the least you can do is read the first and last line and comment :)

The British philosopher Gilbert Ryle coined the phrase “the ghost in the machine” as an expression of his and others’ dissatisfaction with Renee Descartes’ theory of mind-body interaction. Descartes theory, in brief, was that the experience of being self-aware, in other words, of being conscious of what one is experiencing at any given moment, is a result of the interaction between the activity of one’s physical brain (i.e., neurons, neurotransmitters etc..) and one’s spiritual mind (i.e. one’s conscious self). Their synthesis allows us to sense and react to pain, pleasure etc.. as well as to make and carry out decisions.
The essential criticism other philosophers had of Descartes’ theory, was that it was incomplete. It lacked an explanation of the means whereby this process occurs. Descartes’ idea seemed appealing in a sense, however logic dictated that what he was proposing was impossible. Spirituality connotes transcendence, infinitude, boundlessness. Physicality – just the opposite. Anything spiritual is not, and seemingly cannot be bound by anything physical. An idea, for example, cannot be clutched in the palm of one’s hand. Similarly, one cannot measure the dimensions of a concept, saying that this concept is such and such weight or length. The problem is not that a concept is too lofty or difficult to measure with precision, but rather, these qualities of weight and length simply do not apply to concepts and ideas. How then is it possible that a totally spiritual substance such as the mind (which Descartes at times referred to as the soul), can manage to be contained within something as coarsely physical as the brain? How can a ghost be contained in a machine? Well, say the teachings of Chassidus, herein lies the deepest secret of Divinity.
You see, the reason why Descartes and his boys couldn’t solve this paradox for themselves, is because someone in their ‘hood made a mistake along the way and said that G-d was spiritual.
G-d is not spiritual. Nor is He physical. By virtue of having created both, He remains forever exempt from their rules. This is how G-d is able to intervene and surpass the natural laws of both realities and unite them into One. If G-d didn’t actively keep this up at every moment, G-d forbid, the whole thing would indeed collapse immediately. Which is what the philosophers reasoned should be happening, and could not explain how it wasn’t.
This whole thing actually can be taken one step further. Devoid of this G-dly force acting on these two aspects of the human (mind-brain/soul-body), not only would one not be able to experience self-awareness - one would actually cease to exist entirely, G-dforbid! Furthermore, it would be as if one had never existed in the first place! This is because, even the supposed “natural” reality of our physical bodies and our spiritual souls are in truth not natural at all. While the sun may have risen every single day for the past 5770 years of creation, there is still no guarantee that it will rise again tomorrow. The supposed “laws” governing our natural universe were set up by G-d, and the choice remains G-d’s as to whether they continue or not. The sun does not rise in the morning and we do not breathe because of any inherent natural “law”. Every breath we take is a Divine gift, every sunrise a miracle; no less than that of the splitting of the Red Sea, or of containing the ghost of the mind in the machine of the brain.
This unremitting incredibility happens not only in brains or the sun. Everything in our world has both a physical and spiritual existence, even inanimate objects such as rocks and minerals. This is what the Talmud is referring to when it says that every plant has a corresponding energy force that continuously commands it to grow. And like the mind interacts with the brain does this energy force interact with the physical plant and cause it to grow by way of Divine intervention. If this intervention were to cease, the plant would die instantly. And if G-d were to stop willing the plant into existence, it would totally disappear, and be as if it never was.
These teachings may have sounded quite esoteric and difficult to comprehend once upon a time in our history. Our Universe has since matured however, and we Humans together with it. These underlying Truths have therefore now become more understandable, and even empirically evident, not only to the mind’s eye, but in experiential reality as well. The point at which Science ends and metaphysics begins is becoming progressively hazier. Vanishing with it are the boundaries which once sharply delineated the very realms of the physical and the spiritual. One need but skim any contemporary Physics journal to learn about how Space and Time collapse and the interchangeability of matter and energy. Internet and cell phones are just two examples of how modern technology has opened the doors for us to experience the mutability of distance first hand. This process of revelation is indeed occurring quite rapidly. Our choice in the matter at this point, is merely whether or not we wish to tune in.
May we all be granted with the strength and will to embark wholeheartedly on the journey of revelation and bring others along with us for the ride. And may our collective redemption, as well as each individual’s respective redemptions at long last culminate, so that we can then fully experience the consciousness of having the “Earth filled with the knowledge of The Divine, like water covers the sea”. (Isaiah 11:9)

This is Me

2009-11-09T01:27:00.002+01:00

On Being a Jewish Lacto-Ovo Vegetaran

2009-11-08T23:57:00.007+01:00

This is my first request-post by Cheerio, I hope you like it.

Yes, I am a vegetarian. May seem crazy or unorthodox to you, but that is just a bonus to me. While doing some research i found out that i'm not a regular vegetarian. I'm a Lacto-ovo vegetarian, which means that i eat milk-roducts and eggs, but no meat of any kind (yes fish and chicken is meat). It's the way i grew up and it will, hopefully, remain so always.

This dietary restriction, however, has always gotten me in trouble with other-no doubt well meaning but meat crazy-jews. Lets say I'm invited for shabbos by a family of a friend of mine (it has happened before) and i arrive on thursday late night. Usually, midnight will find my friend and i in the kitchen, being served left-overs from dinner by the matriarch. My friend notices my sour face as she places a steaming hot plate of U.F.O (Unidentified Fleish Object) infront of me and will say: "Oh, I

forgot... Mom, N8 is a vegetarian". At this crossroad of the story I get many different reactions. Some start laughing, as if it were a joke, others yell for the protector of the house and make me repeat the crazy info to him, but it always comes down to this question: "Why?".

“I'm not a vegetarian, but I eat animals who are” Groucho Marx

So far i have never answered this question truthfully, and soon you will know why. You won't like me for it, but that is what i'm

here for. The truth is that i feel terrible pity and pain for the animal that once breathed and lived just like me. 12th century jewish philosopher Maimonides tells us that animals have feelings, and Proverbs notifies us that "The righteous person regards the life of their animal." So don't give me any of that "Animals are created for us to eat" BS. Of course Hashem did give us permission to eat certain animals, followed-as always- with many restrictions, but he did not want us to hurt animals the way they are hurt today. Yes,

even the kosher ones. Why would a holy nation, build upon compassion, morals and wisdom want any hands in this gross business? I don't want to impose my philosophies on anybody, and try to grimace as little as possible when meat is served, I'm just telling you why I'm a vegetarian.

But it's a mitzvah to eat meat on shabbos and yom tov? (That reminds me a little about me a day before Yom Kippur: i have to eat for two days? And it's a mitzvah? Nice!) Do me a favor and do some homework will you? Pesachim 109a and Baba Batra 60b and then tell me i HAVE to eat cholent. Can sensitive, compassionate people enhance a joyous occasion by eating meat if they are aware that, for their eating pleasure, animals are cruelly treated, huge amounts of grains are fed to animals while millions of people starve, the environment is negatively affected, and their own health is being harmed?

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” Albert Einstein

So now you understand why i never tell the truth when someone asks me why i'm a vegetarian. I usually say "i don't like meat" or "i'm allergic", and then they go on to make me some good non-meat food.

I don't care if you eat meat but look how angry this post made you. You feel attacked and you think i'm calling you cruel and inhumane. I'm not. I'm telling you why i am doing this, thats all.

Be save out there people, it's a crazy world.

Baruch Benedict de Spinoza

2009-11-06T00:47:00.008+01:00

In 1632 Baruch Spinoza was born in Amsterdam into a jewish family who had fled from Portugal for obvious reasons. He attended Yeshivah in Amsterdam for many years, learning Gemore, Chumash, Rambam etc. however, his critical, curious nature would soon come into conflict with the Jewish community. After both his parents passed away at an early age, he threw himself into the study of secular philosophy starting with Descartes. He went on to publicly rejecting the immortality of the soul and regarded biblical (sounds weird to say "torahdike") stories as parables. Claiming that jewish law does not apply anymore and that Rabbis have no authority. Surprisingly, the Rabbis of Amsterdam were not happy with Baruch and put him in "cheirem" a.k.a excommunication. Ho promptly moved away, changed his name to Benedict (latin for blessed-baruch) and went on to make philosophical history. Especially in the field of reality and emotions. For Spinoza, emotions reflect the downside of the human predicament: they are responses to events that are outside our control. But feeling despair in our losses and jubilation in our successes is unwarranted, given the ultimate necessity of all things. To react emotionally is to harbor the illusion of freedom; and the only true freedom we can achieve is knowledge of this necessity. When this knowledge comes, it can also bring a kind of calmness. We recognize that all our hopes and fears are in vain, since we have no power to change the course of nature. Given our inability to change the world, we should strive to restrain our emotional responses as much as we can. This flight from passion echoes the views of the Stoics. Spinoza joins a long line of thinkers who regard emotions as essentially confused. He died at age 44 and was buried in a churchyard in the Netherlands somewhere, leaving no wife or children to morn for him.

The Rabbis of Amsterdam write of two reasons they excommunicated him; firstly they did not want him rubbing shoulders with other jews, afraid that they might be infected by his poisonous thoughts. Secondly they did not want to anger the church. Spinoza's religious views did not only attack his fellow jews but christian theologies. So as to remain in good terms with the mighty church, the Rabbis kicked him out. Now, i don't want to discuss if his excommunication was just because it happend too long ago and also: i don't care. What i would like to discuss with you is rabbinical authority.

I understand that i don't have to agree with everything that the Torah says, but the i'm supposed to do it because God tells me to, fair enough; i believe in God and even love him (sometimes). But then there are the Rabbis... The more "sense data" i get from this world the more i start to hate them. They seem to be pulling us apart and making more trouble than good. Of course not all are bad, but if you threw them all in one pot (here's a good idea) it won't taste very good. What are they accomplishing with their constant battles over power, territory and money? How are they helping jews by excommunicating them? What kind of "Tikkun Olam" is that? It did not work by Spinoza and it wont work today. Sure, there are troubled souls everywhere but if they are attacked it only makes matters worse. Do to them as you would to the subway-muscian, ignore him. If the priests in Wittenberg had just torn down the sign, hammered on the door of the church by Martin Luther in 1517, nobody today would know his name.

To follow Haloche, decrees, and customs put on us by the Rabbis is actually a "deoraisa", that much i know (Deuteronomy 17:11) but i think the modern version of all that went a little overboard the last few years. I have worked as a Mashgiach part time for the last half year and got a little sniff of the "takanos". No strawberries? Seriously? I dont know what amount of study went into that discovery, but that is absurd! Was it a particularly brain-dameged fellow who looked at a strawberry, was horrified by the many black dots, and confusing them for bugs threw it away in discuss, only that strawberry hit a Rabbi in the face who vowed revenge...

I don't have to give other examples of food or social restrictions, since Frumsatire.net has made most of the wet work already, but you get my meaning. I don't make a point of it, but i do eat strawberries, raisins, and fresh salads (no soapy taste). I don't do it in spite of it, i just find it ludicrous (God i love that word) that they put most of their power into those decrees and ignore more pressing matters (School drop-outs, assimilation, no good kosher food etc.)

I leave you with this quote by a famous jewish drop-out: “Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”

that's right, dear old Al Einstein.

My Fall in Zürich

2009-11-02T16:13:00.005+01:00

Hey everybody, I'm back and here to stay. Yesterday was a perfect picture-taking day, so here you have some more reasons why i love this city.

On Yom Kippur

2009-09-27T15:26:00.004+02:00

I had a though a couple of years ago, that the fasting is more of a punishment than an attempt to get us to be pure (or whatever). Almost all days in the jewish calender have a strong connection to food, and that is fine with me. Even today, a day before the big one, we eat a lot. But when it comes to the holiest day of the year, we practice abstinence. Frankly, the chest-banging, tearful repentance, endless hours of standing still, and the typical smell of a room in which too many jewish males are parked with too many layers of none-breathable clothing would be easier to bare if i had a nice tofu schnitzel with tomato-mozerella salad before.

Some say: "Well, it's not supposed to be easy" but that is such a The-glass-is-half-full approach that i hate. Say: "It is meant to be hard" and i'll like you for it.

As a vegetarian i'm very much against the whole animal slaughtering business, so i do it with money every year, i was in Crown Heights last year to witness the holocaust of chickens, and i'm sure they deserved it. They do, after all, now carry all the sins of their (can i say swingers?)

"if i have ever done anything to offend you, please forgive... i would like to ask you for forgiveness...". When did those sentences become meaningless? Its like "good morning, how are you" or "so where do you learn now" or "what are you doing this summer". Just something you gotta say, in other words a white lie. And if you do it with meaning, or you pause to think if you really truly forgive him you seem weird. That dosent mean i dont offend or hurt, but when i do, i ask for forgiveness immediately post facto. I don't wait like a coward to ask for it 7 months later and expect to be absolved. So i don't do it today or during elul, i do it the whole year and when i do i mean it. And don't be surprised if my Facebook status is not "... is asking everybody for forgiveness yadah yadah yadah"

To me Y'M is the most boring day of the year. I know that i sound sacrilegious, but it's important to be honest at the EA (Eggheads Anonymous) meetings. The endless stream of hebrew letters are frustrating enough without always wondering where the hell the chazan is up to. And right when i'm completely lost the Gabi usually comes and asks me to open the closet up front. Also the "mechitzah glancing" becomes difficult when everybody is all of a sudden religious again and starts packing into the small room, making it impossible to see anything, or breath for that matter. And everybody is so serious, and i know they have reason but to me it's an impossible living situation. So usually i would crack jokes, but now... And i can't even carry the new Dan Brown book to shul, where i could isolate myself in the library and pretend to daven "bearichus" while reading about symbols and codes.

Now that i have officially been un-invited to the Shliach of Hannover Germany, i will spend this great day in Zürich. Where i will fight to get a good seat next to a window (fingers crossed). Wish me luck people.

Have a good year

On Zürich

2009-09-24T12:47:00.003+02:00

I moved to Zurich when i was three or four years old. We tried living in Israel for a while but that did not work out, so we came back to Switzerland, and instead of going back to Basel, we went to Zurich. First used by the romans in circa 50 AD as a tax-collecting point, now can be counted as the city with the best quality of life in the world as well as the wealthiest city in Europe. But to me it is so much more. It is a part of me. I know every nook and carny of this majestic municipality. There is no corner that me and my bike cannot reach, the many narrow, cobble-stone streets in the old city, and the lush green parks in the suburbs. Zurich is my home, Rindmarktstrasse with all the pubs and bars is my living-room, Bhanhofstrasse with all the stores is my closet, The Rein my bath, and the finical district my toilet.

But we have a winner: the Oliver Twist pub, located in a narrow, bare, street in the old city. Its is Zurich's oldest pub and i love it. Not only because they serve Guinness beer, or the friendly irish barman. I love for it's cozy pirat-ship-like interior, brown wooden walls, plush couches and stools, lively irish music in the background and sheltered. Signs like "No bloody cursing here" or "In this spot in 1769 nothing happend" adore the walls, next to old paintings and a grandfather clock. A old TV is playing some sort of cricket game, and the three, huge, irish men in the corner are having and infinite drinking competition, That is my bedroom. They call me "the jew" in a brotherly you-belong-to-us-because-you-hold-your-liqueur tone of voice.

There is this awe-inspiring locale called Lindenenhof, that is situated at the top of a hill in middle of the old city (yes i love the old city, so sue me) where you can see everything. Pople going about their business like little ants, swarming around in close proximity of each other and at the same time trying to avoid each other. Its is called thus for it's many Eichen trees (oak trees) that adorn the surrounding area. That is my watch tower, a place in wich i can see everything and think.

Some one has recently pointed out to me that my country is *whacky". But that is just another word for "unfamiliar" and "strange to me". And she was right. To you this country seems strange and weird, but be comforted lowly american, that is only because you are a close-minded, snobbish, moronic moron. Maybe we Swiss make fun of you the same way you make fun of polish people, we think of you as fat, lazy, idiotic, low-educated donkeys, and we would not trust you to sit the right way on a toilet (i just lost 65% of my readers). So there you have it.

Now i would like to conclude with the chorus of the irish song that is washing over me: Everyone is wise until he speaks.

... and Drinking

2009-09-22T22:25:00.001+02:00

Apparently putting them together was to much for my dyslectic friend...

I started this post with the idea of writing about eating and drinking, but I seem to have confined my remarks entirely to eating so far. Well, you see, drinking is one of those subjects with which it is inadvisable to appear too well acquainted. The days are gone by when it was considered Chassidish to go to bed intoxicated every night. On the contrary, in these sadly degenerate days an evil-smelling breath, a blotchy face, a reeling gait, and a husky voice are regarded as the hall marks of the vile rather than a pious jew.

Even nowadays, though, the thirstiness of bochurim is something supernatural. We are forever drinking on one excuse or another. A bochur never feels comfortable unless he has a glass before him. We drink before meals, and with meals, and after meals. We drink when we meet a friend, also when we part from a friend. We drink when we are talking, when we are reading, and when we are thinking. We drink one another's healths and spoil our own. We drink to the Rebbe , and the Shluchim, and the ladies, and everybody else that is drinkable; and I believe if the supply ran short we would even drink to arabs.

Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.

By the way, we never eat to anybody's health, always drink it. Why should we not stand up now and eat a plate of pasta to somebody's success?

To me, I confess the constant necessity of drinking under which the majority of Chabadniks labor is quite unaccountable. I can understand people drinking to drown care or to drive away maddening thoughts well enough. (says i on my 3rd Guinness) I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soak themselves in drinks. But do do so in the name of religion and righteousness is beyond me.

Ah! I may talk sentiment as much as I like, but the stomach is the real seat of happiness in this world. The kitchen is the chief Shul wherein we worship, the oven is our ner tommid, and the cook

is our cohen gadol. He is a mighty man and a kindly one. He soothes away all sorrow and care. He drives forth all enmity, gladdens all love. Our God is great and the cook is his prophet. Let us eat, drink, and be merry.

Lechaim

On Eating...

2009-09-22T12:02:00.015+02:00

Sorry, no R'H, Z'G, Y'K or any other tishrei post for you, there are enough of those flying around.

I was always fond of eating and drinking, even as a child, especially eating, in those early days. I had an appetite then, also a digestion. I remember a dull-eyed, livid-complexioned Chosid coming to eat at our house once. He watched me eating for about five minutes, quite fascinated seemingly, and then he turned to my father with:

"Does your boy ever suffer from dyspepsia?"

"I never heard him complain of anything of that kind," replied my father. "Do you ever suffer from dyspepsia, Schtüpelli" (They called me Schtümpelli, but it is not my real name.)

"No,
papi," I answered. After which I added:

"What is dyspepsia, papi?"

My livid-complexioned friend regarded me with a look of mingled amazement and envy. Then in a tone of infinite pity he slowly said:

"You will know... some day."

My dear mother used to say she liked to see me eat, and it has always been a pleasant reflection to me since that I must have given her much gratification in that direction. A growing, healthy Bochur, taking plenty of exercise and careful to restrain himself from indulging in too much study, can generally satisfy the most exacting expectations as regards to his feeding powers.

It is amusing to see boys eat if you don't have to pay for it. Their idea of a square meal is a pound and a half of pasta with five or six good-sized potatoes (soapy ones preferred as being more substantial), plenty of cheese and ketchup, and four thick slices of Pizza,
followed by a couple cups of coke, a few punds of ice cream, a handful of marshmallows , half a dozen caramel candies. After that they run around the house.

How they must despise us grown ups (i can't deny it any longer), who require to sit quiet for a couple of
hours after finishing off a spoonful of clear kneidel soup and the slices of tofu!

But the boys have not all the advantages on their side. A boy never enjoys the luxury of being satisfied. A boy never feels full. He can never stretch out his legs, put his hands behind his head, and, closing his eyes, sink into the ethereal blissfulness that en
compasses the well-dined man. A dinner makes no difference whatever to a boy. To a man it is as a good fairy's potion, and after it the world appears a brighter and a better place. A man who has dined satisfactorily experiences a yearning love toward all his fellow-creatures.

A good dinner also brings out all the softer side of man. Under its warm influence the gloomy and morose become jovial and chatty. Sour, starchy individuals, who all the rest of the day walk around looking as if they lived on vinegar and Epsom salts, break out into wreathed smiles after dinner, and exhibit a tendency to pat small children on the head and to talk to them--vaguely--about allowances. Serious men become mildly cheerful, and snobbish bochurim of the french-shoe-wearing type forget to make themselves objectionable.

A full stomach is a great aid to poetry, and no sentiment of any kind can stand upon an empty one. That is why I have chosen to write this post in my favorite irish pup in Zurich, where beer and nuts with chips flow like milk and honey, and soft irish musik adds to the dark and cozy environment) I don't have the time or inclination to indulge in fanciful troubles until i have a full stomach.

Foolish people (when I say "foolish people" in this contemptuous way I mean people who entertain different opinions to mine. If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do) will tell you that mental distress is far more agonizing than bodily. But it is all nonsense. An aching head soon makes one forget an aching heart. A broken finger will drive away all recollections of an empty chair. And when a man feels really hungry he does not feel anything else.

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like and do what you'd rather not.

We sleek, well-fed jews can hardly realize what feeling hungry is like. (No, Zom Gedalia and yom kippur don't count) We know what it is to have no appetite and not to care for the delicious Cholent placed before us, but we do not understand what it means to sicken for food, to die for bread while others waste it, to gaze with famished eyes on coarse meal steaming behind dingy windows, longing for a Frank's forth of pea pudding and not having the money to buy it, to feel that a crust would be delicious and that a bone would be a banquet.

Hunger is a luxury to us, a piquant, flavor-giving sauce. It is well worth while to get hungry and thirsty merely to discover how much gratification can be obtained from eating and drinking. If you wish to thoroughly enjoy your Shabbos afternoon meal, take a thirty-mile country walk after

Shacharis and don't touch anything till you get back. How your eyes will glisten at sight of the white table-cloth and steaming dishes then! With what a sigh of content you will take up your knife and fork! And how comfortable you feel afterward as you push back your chair, and beam round at everybody.

On a Bochur's Attire

2009-09-15T22:24:00.009+02:00

Before i dive into the many aspects of "bocher clothing" i feel that i need to point out that the following descriptions are all on how i use those articles, it doesn't necessarily apply to all bochurim. Some are a little disturbing, but then again most bochurim-tales are, so you might want to skip this one girls. Enjoy.

Yarmulka: At first i was annoyed at this seemingly useless pice of cloth that is hitching a ride on my head, but then i started seeing the many uses of it. Besides absorbing some of the sweat and making me look more religious, i mean. I tried out many different yarmulka materials before i found the one: Velvet

Oven mit; working at a restaurant and in the yeshivah kitchen at motzeh shabbos made me realize that object coming out of a hot oven tend to be hot as well. And since the burned hand learns the best i adapted. Also works great for changing light bulbs.
An emergency tissue for either (i warned you girls, it's your fault) nose, mouth, or for cleaning up egg-salad off your face during a Farbrengen (or all of the above)
A sleeping mask, works great if your roommate can't sleep with the lights off, if you are traveling, or trying to "chap" a shluff during shiur. It blocks out most of the light and all of it if you also close your eyes.
A pillow: seriously, If your on a bus (eged, or greyhound) and are lucky enough to have a window seat you can just fold it once or twice and press your head against the window. This is a painful position and should only be attempted after many nights without sleep. Also useful during camp, especially the last days.
A glasses case: I gave up on wearing my yarmukah at night. I simply dont have the patience to look for it in the morning (come to think of it, i don't have patience for anything in the morning) . So at night i wrap my glasses in it, that way i have both of my head instruments together, and it keeps the glasses warm at night.
Insect swapper: Mostly used during the night hours and in camp where the mosquitos seem to be double in size than in the city. My personal record is 23 insects per hour.

Hat: I got my first one two months before my big day, and i loved it. Made me feel so grown up. Then two months after it i left it on a train heading south. My talented career of hat-loosing was well underway when i went to yeshivah a year later, so i have been through most brands and to tell you the truth; i can't tell the difference between them. :

A pillow. But you all knew that. Maybe from personal experience or you heard it as a sort of urban myth, but i can tell you it is very comfortable for the first couple of minutes (which is usually as long as it takes to fall asleep once you consider the hat alternative). I used it in 1414, with a mountain of laundry as mattress, at a corner is zal or classroom, and on the plain. My hat looks accordingly of course.
A bowl: NO i dont mean for "cholent" (THAT is an urban myth) i mean for dry foods. Like potato chips, or popcorn for "farbeissen". It is used if the plastic bowls are out or further away from the hat. And, as a plus, my hat smells like preservatives.
A Frisbee that can be used after (or during) seder when the bochurim are bored. It is also a nice alternative to simply passing the hat like all other human beings: just spinn it in his general direction.
Attraction at a wedding: what you do is take a bottle of "sechundneinziger" and drench you hat with it. Stand in middle where most men (and meidelach) can see and light it on fire whilst wearing it. WARNING! Do not attempt with cheap brand as they will most likely melt. Dance a little with it and get out of there, as you have a maximum of 60 seconds till the fire alarm is activated.

If i forgot to add anything feel free to add to the list in the comment section.

On Gray Matter

2009-09-13T20:51:00.007+02:00

Once there lived a good, wise man. Or rather, I should say, there had lived, for at the time of which I speak the poor old gentleman lay dying. Waiting each moment the dread summons, he fell a musing on the life that stretched far back behind him. How full it seemed to him at that moment of follies and mistakes, bringing bitter tears not to himself alone but to others also. How much brighter a road might it have been, had he been wiser, had he known!  "Ah, me!" said the good old gentleman, "if only I could live my life again in the light of experience."

Now as he spoke these words he felt the drawing near to him of a Presence, and thinking it was the One whom he expected, raising himself a little from his bed, he feebly cried,  "I am ready."  But a hand forced him gently back, a voice saying, "Not yet; I bring life, not death. Hashem has granted your wish. You shall live your life again, and the knowledge of the past shall be with you to guide you. See to it that you use it. I will come again."

Then a sleep fell upon the good man, and when he awoke, he was again a little child, lying in his mother's arms; but, locked within his brain was the knowledge of the life that he had lived already.  So once more he lived and loved and laboured. So a second time he lay an old, worn man with life behind him. And the malach stood again beside his bed; and the voice said,  "Well, are you content now?"

  "I am well content," said the old gentleman. "Let Death come."

  "And have you understood?" asked the malach.  "I think so," was the answer; "I have been wise only to reap the reward of folly. Knowledge has ofttimes kept me from my good. I have avoided my old mistakes only to fall into others that I knew not of. I have reached the old errors by new roads. Where I have escaped sorrow I have lost joy. Where I have grasped happiness I have plucked pain also. Now let me go with Death so that I may learn.."

Students walking into a philosophy or chabad lecture are usually hoping to get perspective on, say, the meaning of it all, asking questions like "Does God exist?", "How can i be true to myself?", "What's life all about?" or "Did i walk into the wrong classroom?". People ask these questions because they look around and think "that can't be the whole picture". Is money really the real god of man? Is the whole reason i work had so that i can save enough to take a break from work? Why do my kids spit in my face after i have given them all? What happens after i die?

How do you get a philosopher of your porch? Pay for the pizza

Little do they know that there is no answer. For every answer begets another question, so the more they learn the more they realize they know nothing. They looked for happiness but found  that there is no such thing. The brain forgets most misery and good times do exist, but only just enough so that we don't end it. The only path to happiness is ignorance and for some of us that cannot be achieved. We are cursed with the ability to think and doubt. We question those who say "because that's the way it's sopposed to be...". We ask "why?", or as the indian chief says "How?". We realize that something is terribly wrong but don't know how to formulate it in our thoughts or on paper. 

Too depressing? Would you rather read some comically, stereotypical, intelectual post about jewish life? Or maybe a short but funny narrative on how my day went? Perhaps i should pose an interesting question about polotics to which you can react to in the comment section? Well, not today. 

There is something awfully attractive about blogging. Sending out your thoughts into the unknown where it can be read by any one. The aggressive one's can argue, the lonely ones can interact, the the scared can speak about their phobias and the sad find comfort in other people's well-wishes and sympathy. Most are anonymous , allowing us to express ourselves how we really are (or how we express ourselves as a blogger). To me it's a sopport system. A group called EA (Eggheads Anonymous), telling me what AA tells every alcoholic: "you're not alone", and for that i thank you all.

But i'm afraid that's where it will stay, in writing. I will eventually learn that if i want to get anywhere in life i have to adapt to the mind-numbing, meaningless, courteous formalities which are utterly insincere, devoid of truth and therefore degrading. I will have to conform (shudder), and than i myself will be one of them, telling people like me (the me now) that i need to grow up and get with the program. There seems to be no convenient way out. 

See, skinny socially privileged white people (or worse, jews!) get to draw this neat little circle, and everyone inside the circle is normal, anyone outside the circle should be beaten, broken and reset so they can be brought into the circle. Failing that, they should be institutionalized or worse, pitied. Guess where i am.

I just want to get on a bike, with 50 euros in my pocket, all the camping equipment that i can carry, and head of to the road were decency and moral ethics rule. Now i'm no talking i-wanno-see-the-world-and-go-where-the-wind-takes-me... well, maybe i am, but it sounds so lame. The adventurism of not knowing were you will sleep that night. The uncertainty of tomorrow. The views and the ppl... i could go on and on.

But being that my @£!?ç%+° are afraid that i will go out into the world where open-mindedness exists, i have to delay my dream for eternity. The hostility they have towards ''Chochmas Chitzonius'' is surprisingly severe. And hostility makes me shrink up like a....I cant think of a non-sexual metaphor...


I now leave you all with the knowledge that there is no such thing as hope or happiness, and that life is ultimately about money, sex and power.

Lechaim

On How To be Lazy

2009-09-10T13:36:00.004+02:00

I wrote this in favorite type of writing: Victorian-early 1900- with a nice amount of sarcasm mixed in.

TO:

THE VERY DEAR AND WELL-BELOVED FRIEND OF MY PROSPEROUS AND EVIL DAYS--

TO THE FRIEND

WHO, THOUGH IN THE EARLY STAGES OF OUR ACQUAINTANCESHIP DID OFTTIMES DISAGREE WITH ME, HAS SINCE BECOME TO BE MY VERY WARMEST COMRADE--

TO THE FRIEND

WHO, HOWEVER OFTEN I MAY LEAVE HIM , NEVER (NOW) UPSETS ME IN REVENGE--

TO THE FRIEND

WHO, TREATED WITH MARKED COOLNESS BY ALL THE FEMALE MEMBERS OF MY HOUSEHOLD, NEVERTHELESS SEEMS DAY BY DAY TO BE MORE DRAWN BY ME, AND IN RETURN TO MORE AND MORE IMPREGNATE ME WITH THE COMFORT OF HIS FRIENDSHIP--

TO THE FRIEND

WHO NEVER TELLS ME OF MY FAULTS, NEVER WANTS TO BORROW MONEY, AND NEVER TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF--

MY OLDEST AND STRONGEST

BED,

THIS LITTLE POST IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

Now, this is a subject on which I flatter myself I really am a "mumche". The gentleman who, when I was young, bathed me at wisdom's font for nine hundred Franks a term--no extras-used to say he never knew a boy who could do less work in more time; and I remember my poor grandmother once incidentally observing, in the course of an instruction upon the use of the "siddur", that it was highly improbable that I should ever do much that I ought not to do, but that she felt convinced beyond a doubt that I should leave undone prettywell everything that I ought to do.

I am afraid I have somewhat belied half the dear old lady's prophecy. I have done a good many things that I ought not to have done, in spite of my laziness. But I have fully confirmed the accuracy of her judgment so far as neglecting much that I ought not to have neglected is concerned. Lazing around always has been my strong point. I take no credit to myself in the matter--it is a gift. Few possess it. There are plenty of lazy people and plenty of slow-coaches, but a genuine idler is a rarity. He is not a man who slouches about with his hands in his pockets. On the contrary, his most startling characteristic is that he is always intensely busy.

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.

I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do. That is my pig-headed nature. The time when I like best to stand with my back to the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is heaped highest with letters that must be answered by the next post. When I like to dawdle longest over my dinner is when I have a heavy evening's work before me. And if, for some urgent reason, I ought to be up particularly early in the morning, it is then, more than at any other time, that I love to lie an extra four hours in bed.

Ah! how delicious it is to turn over and go to sleep again: "just for five minutes." Is there any human being, I wonder, besides the hero of a "Chanukka adventure" who ever gets up willingly? There are some men to whom getting up at the proper time is an utter impossibility. If eight o'clock happens to be the time that they should turn out, then they lie till half-past. If circumstances change and half-past eight becomes early enough for them, then it is nine before they can rise. They are like the Lubavitcher Yekeh of whom it is said that he was always punctually half an hour late. They try all manner of schemes. They buy alarm-clocks (artful contrivances that go off at the wrong time and alarm the wrong people). They tell their "chavrusah" to knock at the door and call them, and he does knock at the door and does call them, and they grunt back "awri" and then go comfortably to sleep again. I knew one bochur who would actually get out and have a cold bath; and even that was of no use, for afterward he would jump into bed again to warm himself.

I think myself that I could keep out of bed all right if I once got out. It is the wrenching away of the head from the pillow that I find so hard, and no amount of over-night determination makes it easier. I say to myself, after having wasted the whole evening, "Well, I won't do any more learning tonight; I'll get up early tomorrow morning;" and I am thoroughly resolved to do so--then. In the morning, however, I feel less enthusiastic about the idea, and reflect that it would have been much better if I had stayed up last night. And then there is the trouble of dressing, and the more one thinks about that the more one wants to put it off.

It is a strange thing this bed, this mimic grave, where we stretch our tired limbs and sink away so quietly into the silence and rest. "O bed, O bed, delicious bed, that heaven on earth to the weary head," as sang poor Robin Hood, you are a kind old nurse to us fretful boys and girls. Clever and foolish, naughty and good, you take us all in your motherly lap and hush our wayward crying. The strong man full of care--the sick man full of pain--the little maiden sobbing for her faithless lover--like children we lay our aching heads on your white bosom, and you gently soothe us off to by-by.

Our trouble is sore indeed when you turn away and will not comfort us. How long the dawn seems coming when we cannot sleep! Oh! those hideous nights when we toss and turn in fever and pain, when we lie, like living men among the dead, staring out into the dark hours that drift so slowly between us and the light. And oh! those still more hideous nights when we sit by another in pain, when the beloved roommate startles us every now and then with a sudden snore or gasp of air, and the tick of the clock seems a hammer beating out the life that we are watching.

But enough of beds and bedrooms. I have kept to them too long, even for an idle fellow. Let us come out and have a smoke. That wastes time just as well and does not look so bad. Tobacco has been a blessing to us idlers. I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed. They had no work to do and could not smoke, and the consequence was they were forever fighting and rowing. If, by any extraordinary chance, there was no war going, then they got up a deadly family feud with the next-door neighbor, and if, in spite of this, they still had a few spare moments on their hands, they occupied them with discussions as to whose sweetheart was the best looking, the arguments employed on both sides being battle-axes, clubs, etc. Questions of taste were soon decided in those days. When a twelfth-century youth fell in love he did not take three paces backward, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she was too beautiful to live. He said he would step outside and see about it. And if, when he got out, he met a man and broke his head--the other man's head, I mean--then that proved that his--the first fellow's--girl was a pretty girl. But if the other fellow broke _his_ head--not his own, you know, but the other fellow's--the other fellow to the second fellow, that is, because of course the other fellow would only be the other fellow to him, not the first fellow who--well, if he broke his head, then _his_ girl--not the other fellow's, but the fellow who _was_ the-- Look here, if A broke B's head, then A's girl was a pretty girl; but if B broke A's head, then A's girl wasn't a pretty girl, but B's girl was. That was their method of conducting art criticism.

Nowadays we light one up and let the girls fight it out among themselves.

They do it very well. They are getting to do all our work. They are doctors, and barristers, and artists. They manage stores, and promote swindles, and edit newspapers. I am looking forward to the time when we men shall have nothing to do but lie in bed till twelve, read two novels a day, and tax our brains with nothing more trying than discussions upon the latest patterns in pants and arguments as to what Mr. Goldwassers coat was made of and whether it fitted him. It is a glorious prospect--for idle fellows.

You Know your in Yeshiva When...

2009-09-10T02:09:00.004+02:00

I wrote this list a couple of months back, but decided to post it because a) you guys seem to like the yeshivah stuff and b) i dedicated an all-nighter to it. Enjoy!

1. Mesifta started before 8am, but now anything before noon is considered “early."

2. You have more ''mashkeh'' than food in your fridge.

3. 6am is when you go to sleep, not when you wake up.

4. Instead of falling asleep in ''Shiur'', you stay in bed.

5. Your underwear/sock supply dictates your laundry schedule.

6. You get drunk dialed on any night of the week.

7. The standard of meals per day falls to two, sometimes just one.

8. Your trash is overflowing and your bank account isn’t

9. You wear the same pants for 13 days without washing them.

10. You live in an aprtment with three couches, none of which match.

11. You try to learn but seem to procrastinate by eating, going to bathroom breaks, talking to people, etc...

12. You ask people what YOU did last night.

13. You sleep more in Zal than in your room

14. You've traveled with bags of dirty clothes.

15. More than 20% of your apartment furnishings are made from milk crates.

16. You throw out bowls and plates because you don't feel like washing them.

17. You've written a check for 45 cents or stopped to get $2.00 of gas.

18. You think anything can be cooked on a good 'ol Gorge Forman

19. Going to the grocery at midnight is completely normal.

20. You call restaurants that deliver more than you call your own family.

21. the building is heated in the summer and air conditioned in the winter

22. Your ''maggid shiur'' speaks English... as a second language.

23. You bring back socks from the laundry room that may or may not be yours.

24. You are no longer thankful that fire alarms are here to protect you.

25. You begin to include ketchup on your list of acceptable vegetables.

26. People have to help you kick the vending machine just so you can get your 50 cent bag of chips.

27. You steal dishes from the cafeteria so you don't have to wash your own.

28. Laundry is an all-day event.

29. You find your list of acceptable napping places expanding daily to increasingly uncomfortable locations.

30. You've eaten cereal out of a cup... with a fork.

31. Dressing up for Purim becomes cool again.

32. You know at least one person who has dropped his cell phone into a toilet.

33. You hang multiple shirts on the same hanger to save space/money.

34. You admire people's alcohol bottle shrines.

35. You set your clock 5-10 minutes ahead so you can potentially make it to ''Shiur'' on time.

36. You eventually realize that setting your clock ahead makes no difference to you and you're still late.

37. You open canned food and eat it... out of the can.

38. The food in your fridge may or may not be older than your little brother.

39. You have a drinking/Farbrengen buddy who can hold the most intellectual, deep conversations when drunk. Unfortunately, neither he nor you can remember most of it later.

40. Your floor has been dirty to the point that you've had to brush your feet off before putting on socks or getting into bed.

41. You know exactly how much food will fit into a mini-fridge

42. You realize that said mini-fridge does NOT freeze ice cream.

43. Your scar stories involve alcohol and/or hearing what happened to you from your more sober friends.

44. You smell the clear liquid in your water bottle before you drink it... just to make sure it's actually water.

45. You discover new bruises on your body and wonder where the hell they came from.

46. The same fish sticks that are served square on Tuesday are served round
on Friday.

47. You have a pile of dirty clothes, a pile of once-used but not quite
dirty clothes, and a pile of clothes used more than once but that you could use a couple more times without smelling too bad.

48. you wake up after a Farbrengen and your still drunk.

49. you hear this: Bocher 1 ''what are you eating?''
Bocher 2 ''I'm not really sure, want some?''
Bocher 1 ''sure''

50. You finish reading this and wonder how you can procrastinate next.

--- Please feel free to add your own---

On How to "Farbreng" in Switzerland

2009-09-08T13:50:00.009+02:00

In the past two days, in honor of "chai elul" I attended two Farbrengens. The first at the Beis Chabad of Zürich the other at somebody's house. In order for you to understand how bizare it was for me i first have to tell you what im used to from Yeshivah. The preperation that goes into a farbrengen is minimal at best, if the janitor is lucky we'll throw a plastic covering over the table. A big pile of forks is dopped into the middle of the table and some of the "machers" will put together the usual selection of bocher-food, i.e onion-tomtao salad (90% oil) egg salad (12% egg) mayo salad (with some tuna) and/or leftovers from shabbos.

Now, it could be that the farby is called for a specific time, but that dont mean they will show up at that time. So it starts with like 3 bochurim, trying out the food and smoozing, so essentially its just one small table. Usually around the time the Mashpia joins them more and more bochurim start crewaling out of bed, and sit around this tiny table ment for five. At the beginning of the farby there is only one rule: get everybody high enough to think what they are listening to makes sense. So its mostly singing wonderful niggunim and consumption of food. Now every farbrengen has to have at least one of the following kinds of bochurim:

Somebody who knows all the niggunim and how they start, as well as the history of niggunim. Somebody who always nitpicks on what the mashpiah is saying ("yeah, but what do we do we cant see the rebbe") and engages him in conversation during the niggunim.

Somebody who gets plastered, no matter when or how, but at the end of the night you know you'll be using him as a foot-stool.

Somebody who starts crying half way into it, for no apparent reason.

Somebody who yells at everybody about everything ("you think you know what it means to be a chosid?").

Somebody who starts throwing food to get everybody to shut up.

Somebody who keeps making more food with less ingredients.

And somebody who stays to the end no matter how long it is.

So i'm used to sharing a chair with another guy, my left toches cheek is hanging of it, hugging/holding onto the guy next to me. It's usually boiling hot and there is never a shortage of alcohol. I have carried unconscious people to bed, cleaned up their vomitus, had shouting matches, and have fallen asleep on the table filled with many layers of food (not all in one night)

I would call what happened here in Zürich a "baalah-batishe Farbrengen". Everybody came on time, and we davend ma'ariv first. Then we went into a well-lit room with a huge table and many chairs. Then they started cleaning up from shabbos's kiddush (as opposed to yeshivah where any place is good and clean enough). There was enough room for everybody to stretch out their legs and get at least one extra chair for their elbow (very important). Then some layed back guy starts mumbling one of the 5 niggunim everybody knows and half murmurs along while the other half are busy on their phones. Rabbi Kantor from Thailand told some nice stories and Rabbi Duchman from NY joined us as well. They then showed a Living Torah... And that's it. Finished. The whole thing took one and a half hours.

Is this what it will be like from now on or is this only in Switzerland? What do you think?

Nagging I

2009-09-06T00:34:00.004+02:00

I hope this post will make it clear that i am not attacking women for nagging, i am merely trying to explain why they do it, and that the faults are both by the man and woman. I beleive that by putting our heads together (in a very tznius'dike way) and understanding what makes the opposite sex tick we can destroy the reputation that ''Yiddishe mamehs'' nag from sunrise to sunset.

Until as late as 1809, English, American and European law allowed for a husband to complain to the local ''goishe beis din'' about his wife's nagging or ''scolding''. If his case was found proved his wife would be sentenced to the ducking stool.

Nagging is a term used almost exclusively by men to describe women.

Most women deny they nag. They see themselves as reminding the males in their lives to do the things that must be done: household chores, taking their medication, fixing broken things and picking up their mess. Some nagging is considered constructive. Where would many men be without a woman in their lives cajoling them not to drink too much beer and eat too much fast food and, if they can't stop, to make sure they exercise and take regular cholesterol tests? Nagging might even, at certain times, keep them alive;

If men nag, however, that's viewed very differently by society.

Men are not naggers. They're assertive, they're leaders, and invariably they're passing on their wisdom - and gently reminding women of the path to take if they happen to forget along the way. Sure, they criticize; find fault, moan and complain, but it's always for the woman's benefit. The repetition of their advice, like "Read the map before you set off! How many times must I tell you?" and "Can't you make more of an effort with how you look when the chevrah come round?" shows admirable persistence and, above all, shows that they care.

Women, similarly, feel that nagging shows that they care, but men rarely see it in the same light. A woman will chide a man about throwing wet towels on the bed, peeling off his socks and leaving them all around the house, and not remembering to take out the garbage. She knows she's being irritating, but believes the way to get through to a man is by repeating, over and over, the same instructions until they one day, hopefully, sink in. She feels the things she's complaining about are based on truth so, while she knows she's being annoying, she feels justified in continuing. A Woman's female friends won't see her as naggitlg either - they'll see the man as lazy or hard to handle and feel nothing but sympathy for his long-suffering partner.

But usually, when a woman starts repeating her orders, the male brain hears only one thing: nagging, Like a dripping tap, nagging wears away at his soul and can gradually build a simmering resentment.

The nagger always hopes that their victim will be motivated into some positive action by being made to feel guilty.

From a male standpoint, nagging is a continual, indirect, negative reminder about the things he hasn't done, or about his shortcomings. It happens mainly at the end of the day, when a man needs fire-gazing time.

The more the nagger nags, the more the victim retreats behind the kind of defensive barriers that drive the nagger crazy. These barriers include newspapers, Seforim, computers, homework, a gloomy face, amnesia, apparent deafness and TV remote controls. No one likes being on the receiving end of subdued rage, ambiguous messages, self-pity and blame or having guilt continually thrust at them. Everyone avoids the nagger, leaving her alone and feeling resentful. When she starts feeling even more trapped, unrecognised and isolated, the victim may suffer even more.

The more the nagger nags, the more isolated she becomes.

The only real outcome from nagging is the destruction of the relationship between the nagger and the victim because the victim feels he has to continually defend himself.

Many women sometimes feel that they are the only sensible adult in the family and that their dear husbands are acting like children. The trouble is that the woman then is tempted to treat her choson more as a naughty little boy than a capable man. His reaction, as a result, is to start behaving like one. This shift in attitude is a start along the precarious path of depreciating the relationship. The more the man rebels, the more the woman nags. The more he resists, the more she starts to act like his mother. Eventually, they both reach a point where they no longer see each other as partners, lovers and best friends. And there's no greater passion-killer for the man than starting to feel he's with his mother, nor for the woman than feeling she's with an immature, selfish and lazy little boy.

Nagging is so often. a clear signal that a communication problem exists between two people. Instead of addressing that problem, however, it's usually far easier to pick on little trivial things and bait each other with those instead. This is particularly a tendency many women have. Many little girls are still brought up believing that they should be nice and sweet, and put their own needs and feelings last.

They grow up into women who believe it's their role to keep the peace, to smooth over problems, to be liked and loved. Many women find it extremely difficult to just come out and say, "I'm not happy living like this. I feel stifled. I want to take a break from everything for two weeks to go off by myself and have some time out. How would you feel if I dropped the kids at my mother's for one week, you took the other week off from work to look after them, and I had some time to myself? I think I'd come back much happier, and be a much nicer person to Iive with." That's much harder to say and do than publicly picking on his pcoming home late from shul.

Women often expect men to intuitively pick up on what they're thinking, without actually saying it. They assume that if they yawn and say ''i'm so tired, I think I'll do the dishes and go to bed " and wander off, men will insist on helping her do the dishes brush their teeth, gargle with breathfreshener, put on some deodorant and slip into something more comfortable to join them in bed (with the blessing of rabbinical law of course). Instead, many men grunt, go back to the fridge for another beer and settle down on the sofa to watch sport on the TV. It's never occurred to them that the woman in their life is talking in indirect code. The woman, sitting alone in bed, eventually falls to sleep alone, feeling unloved and unwanted.

Mrs. Van Daan's grizzling is absolutely unbearable; now she can't any longer drive us crazy over the invasion, she nags us the whole day long about the bad weather. It really would be nice to dump her in a bucket of cold water and put her up in the loft. -Ann Frank

Constant nagging merely masks a deeper communication problem. When women learn to say directly what they mean, men respond more readily. Women need to understand that male brain function is comparatively simple and men can rarely guess what their wives and partners really mean beyond the actual words they've uttered. Once both sexes have realised this, it makes communication much simpler, and removes the need for much of the nagging that takes place.

A man won't tell you he feels emasculated when you correct his behaviour. He won't say that when you chastise or nag him it gives him the same aggravation he used to get from his mother when he was a teenager. And he won't tell you when he finds you as sexually unappealing as he finds his mother. When you let him know you don't think he'll make good decisions, he feels he is a failure and can never meet your standards. Instead, he shuts off.

You both may be doing a lot of talking, but that doesn't mean you're getting the message across. Almost all problems within a relationship such as (Chas vesholom) infidelity, physical or verbal abuse, boredom, depression and nagging are the result of poor communication. Rarely do women ask, "I wonder why he no longer talks to me?" At the same time a man may think, "My wife is no longer attracted to me" but never discuss it with her.

If the woman in your life is nagging you, then she has something to tell you and you're not listening, so she's going to keep on telling you until you do. The reason you're not l'istening is hecause she's not approaching you the right way. Women habitually approach their men the wrong way with indirect talk.

But more about that some other time...

The Beauty that is Switzerland

2009-09-04T15:35:00.004+02:00

Pictures taken by yours truly

Si Vic Pacem Para Bellum

2009-09-04T13:07:00.005+02:00

TRS asked me if i have any experience in the complex relationship paradigm. And chanalia told me im a weirdo for writing so much on the subject. Now i will attempt to answer both questions in the form of a metaphor. (although the latter was more of an insult).

War has caused some of the greatest suffering known in human history. Even a ''just war'' (e.g self-defence or a pre-emptive strike) bring forth death and blood, suffering, and tears, dispair and economic collaps. Families are torn and children cry. It's an ugly business.

It is my firm believe that most of the wa

rs started because of misinterpretations and misunderstandings. Be it a misinterpretation of a verse in the Qur'an or the acidental insult to an emissary. The difference in language, believes, culture, and history are all tied in to that problem.

I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?" ~Eve Merriam

Some say that knowledge is power, and i think in this case it is, power to prevent war. If countries would know that the root of their hatred towards another country is simply a fasle interpretation of words or events, war would be a novelty. Did you know that there are currently at least 15 wars in this world? You might have missed it bec

ause the word ''war has ben erased from the vocabulary of the CNN reporters, it is now known as ''conflicts'', or as the ''heilige'' UN calls it ''low intensity conflicts'' never mind that at least 1000 people die a violent death every year of each ''conflict''.

And im not even gonna mention the financial side of those wars.

But i am getting carried away.

I have never been in a war (ok i did ''almost'' get blown to pieces in israel one ''i was 10 minutes

away!!!'' but come on, who hasn't) so to me a war is more like Chasidim versus Litvaks, or the Goldenbergs versus the Cohens. Or the ever present and never ending ''conflicts'' between a man and the woman. Be it husband and wife, brother and sister, mother and son, or boss and employee. Like wars i believe that most of those fights are caused because of misinterpretations and misunderstandings. And surprisingly the solution is the same as well, knowledge. We have to know that we are different not only in anatomy but also up there (pointing at the head).

To succeed with the opposite sex you need to be able to speak two languages 'Manspeak' and 'Womanspeak'. If you speak only English and you visit France, there's no point in speaking English and ordering fish and chips.French people don't understand either. If you are French and travel to an Englishspeaking country, there's no point in speaking French and asking for grilled snails. The locals just won't get it. But if you buy a simple translation book that shows you how to speak the basic words and phrases of another language, it will help you get around, the locals will love you for it and want to help you even if you're not particularly good at it. Others are impressed when they know you are attempting to understand and communicate with them.

I'm not saying that you should think, talk and act like the opposite sex. Absolutely not. When you buy a mobile phone, it comes with an instruction manual. When you learn how your phone works and program it to do what you want, it will give you lots of pleasure, profit and fun. You'd never accuse the phone company of trying to turn you into a telephone technician because they gave you an instruction manual. Educate yourself on how we are different and learn which bottons to press to get the most out of your ''product''

When a woman realises how men evolved, it's suddenly easier to make allowances for the different way they behave and process thoughts. When a man understands that a woman is coming from a different direction, then he too can profit from her experiences and outlook on life.

Now, it is true that i have no experience in the field of marriage, but i do have sisters and even a mother, as well as female co-workers and a female boss. But i see hoe married folk argue and nag, the confusion is apparent. The truth is i am horribly afraid to turn out like that, and therefore try to prepare myself, reading many books and articles on different body languages and way of speaking and thinking to make sure that if i do fight with the woman that has agreed to spend the rest of her life with little me, it will be for a very good reason ONLY!

Case Study: Bracha, Moish and the Midnight

2009-09-03T16:52:00.003+02:00

To all frustrated and curious guys out there :-)

After Bracha and Moish tied the knot, they argued a lot. Frequently, the arguments would drag on dramatically, way past midnight. The problem was Bracha had been raised to believe a couple should never sleep on an argument. They should kiss and make up before they went to bed. So she'd talk, talk and talk about the problem they'd been arguing about until it started another argument. Moish couldn't handle it. He'd much rather have an argument, go to sleep and forget it.

Bracha wanted to reduce her stress level and was eager for them to reach a mutually satisfactory decision; Moish felt they just kept on going over and over the same points. He was completely talked out by the end of the day and was content to let their disagreement lie.

My husband and ,I decided never go to sleep until we'd resolved an argument.

One night we stayed awake for six months. PHYLLIS DILLER

To men, it's a mystery why women like to talk through an argument, especially late at night. The female brain is, however, a communications computer that is process-based. Women like to talk through every aspect of their actions and their feelings. Men are more likely to recoil at such a prospect. Men prefer to have an argument, and then leave it alone. Men like to go off to their rock, and think about something else.

There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.

RODNEY DANGERFIELD

Women want to make the peace and smooth out any disagreements. They believe talking can make everyone feel better. Men believe talking can usually make things far worse.

Solution:

When a woman is talking through a problem and may not appear to make sense, remember that she needs to go through the process of talking to feel better. Listen with compassion and tell her you're always there to listen when she needs you. This is much easier than trying to fix problems that don't exist and it scores you lots of points.

If you can't respond immediately, gently ask a woman if she could leave the subject and pick it up another day when the heat has subsided from an argument. Say, "Sorry, darling, but I can't get my head'around this problem at the moment. Could we talk about it tomorrow/at the weekend/next week, when I've had a chance to think it through?" This approach is far more Hkely to work than saying nothing.

And hoping the woman will simply run out of things to say...

She won't.

I Like The Guy I Will Be ''One Day''

2009-09-02T13:55:00.009+02:00

Why is it that everything will happen ''one day''? Psychologists often cite procrastination as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision. For a behavior to be classified as procrastination, it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying.

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday. ~Don Marquis

Is this a illness that is directly tied in with my age or is it in my genes? Am i afraid that if i have a structured day with deadlines and responsibilities i will officially be an adult, something i have been scared of for a long time.

Never do today what you can put off for tomorrow. Better yet, never put off 'til tomorrow what you can avoid altogether!

Why do I fall into the procrastination trap time after time? Because procrastination becomes a way--no matter how maladaptive-- of coping with the emotions and physical symptoms that accompany depression. It may bring some temporary relief, but I eventually wake up the following day and find that no brownies have dropped in overnight and done my work for me.

Do you have any cure for this addictive behavior, or do you not even know what im talking about?

One day i'll learn to like myself

One day i'll finally get it right

One day i'll speak some japanese

One day i'll learn to play guitar

And i'll stop procrastinating

And get up off this chair

One day my heart will find a friend

One day i'll make the perfect husband

And i'll change myself just for her

All of these things i'll do one day

One day it'll be okay

3 Memories Of My Childhood

2009-09-01T16:24:00.003+02:00

I know that this is an anonymous blog, and i am confidant that you won't uncover my identity based on the following memories; 1. A pice of clothing 2. A special food 3. A picture.

1. I found an old pair of pajamas that do not fit me anymore, but when I was young I used to refuse wearing anything else at night. They have horizontal lines and the original color is now faded. While I was dusting them off I felt the comfort and coziness those pants used to give me and it evoked similar feelings within me. I then saw my old bed with all the drawings around it and remember being amused by the different shadows the street lamp would project onto my wall.

The smell of Baby-powder was ever present as I shared the room with my brother, who is four years younger than me.

And as I was thinking how to put all those memories on paper (blog paper?), I was suddenly filled with a complete sadness and emptiness. The absence of the security and warmth that I associate with that article of clothing left me yearning for the carefree days when the world was my playground and butterflies made me laugh.

My thoughts then turned to the difference of the sociably accepted norm of behavior for a child and that of an adult, and wished that I had the courage to once again skip, play, draw on walls, and eat sand. Now that the time of hiding behind my mother's skirt has passed, I must behave like a grown up and pretend to enjoy the small-talk, and instead of crying for attention I now have to accomplish equal status to be recognized.

2. I had the great experience of growing up in a vegetarian household , and as it turned out I was the only one in my class-the whole school for that matter-who was blessed with the rare gift of withstanding a steak or even a "Bratwurst" (german sausage). Now whenever the class would go out into the forest for a BBQ there would always be plenty of buns, sausages, potato chips, and mustard. So while all my esteemed and honored fellow students were inhaling as much meat as physiologically possible, I was munching on a potato chips sandwich with mustard. This soon became my routine consumption protocol during an outing.

It has ben many years since last I ate such a controversial-sounding cuisine. Now let me present my findings: First off, I now realize why I did it in the woods, for my kitchen will never look the same ever again. As the little pieces of potato chips were cutting into my gingiva, I recalled the mockery that I endured from my class-mates for my unorthodox way of ingesting provisions. The smell of the poorly-structered fire attacked my olfactory sense, and I remember thinking it was nature's law that wherever one sits that is where the smoke will direct it's blinding effect. And for some reason the sandwich tasted much better back then, maybe because it was not prepared in a kitchen.

3. It is not an old photograph, as people imagine it, no faded color, no burn marks, and no small tears. It is a Picture of me standing on the deck of a ship, wearing a blue hat and brandishing an ice cream cone like it was a medieval weapon. The story connected with that day came back to me, and I smiled. As you may have deduced from the ice cream cone, it was a hot day, a perfect day for a trip on one of the big boats that frequent the Lake of Zurich. As my parents were enjoying the spring weather and fresh breeze I was holding onto one of the many bars of the railing, observing the blue water and listening to the hum of the ship's engine. To this day I do not know what got into me , perhaps it was that innocent, business-like, curiosity that every child subscribes to, or maybe the wiring was faulty.

Whatever the reason, I garbed my hat and tossed it overboard where it was soon consumed by the ever-moving waves. I was sad over the loss of my trusting companion that accompanied me almost everywhere, and vowed I would never trough anything away ever again. But now when I asked my parents about that incident they told me that ten minuts later my hat was followed by the ice cream cone.

Men and Women, Can it Work?

2009-08-31T16:59:00.003+02:00

I copied this from one of my favorite books on the subject of man a women: ''Why Men Don't Listen & Women Can't Read Maps'' by Allan & Barbara Pease. After 300 pages on how we are different this is what they write:

Relationships between men and women work despite overwhelming sex differences. Much of the credit here goes to women because tbey bave the necessary skills to manage relationships and family. They're equipped with the ability to sense the motives and meanings behind speech and behaviour, and can therefore predict outcomes or take action early to avert problems. This factor alone would make the world a much safer place if every nation's leader was a woman (War only once a month). Men are equipped to hunt and chase lunch, find their way home, fire-gaze and procreate _ that's it. They need to learn new ways for modern survival just like women do.

Relationships become rocky when men and women fail to acknowledge they are biologically different and when each expects the other to live up to their expectations.

Much of the stress we experience in relationships comes from the false belief that men and women are now the same and have the same priorities, drives and desires.

For the first time in human history we are raising and educating boys and girls in identical ways, teaching them that they are the same and that each is as capable as the other. Then, as adults, they get married and wake up one morning to find they are different to each other in every way, shape and form. It's little wonder that young people's relationships and marriages are in such disastrous shape. Any concept that insists on sexual uniformity is fraught with danger because it demands the same behaviour from both men anc! women, who have quite different brain circuitry. Sometimes it's hard to understand why Nature would plan such apparent incompatibility between the sexes, but it only looks that way because our biology is so at odds with our current environment.

The good news is that when you understand the origins of these differences, you not only find it easier to live with them, you can manage, appreciate, and end up cherishing them too.

Men want power, achievement and sex. Women want relationships, stability and love. To feel upset about this is as useful as abusing the sky for raining. Accepting that it rains allows you to cope with the weather by carrying an umbrella or raincoat, so it is no longer a problem. In the same way, anticipating the difficulties or conflicts that might arise in relationships as a result of our differences enables you to anticipate and defuse them as they occur.

Every day, brain scans are giving us new and exciting insights into how our brains operate and explain many of the things we take for granted. When a girl with anorexia looks in a mirror she sees herself as fat or obese. What she sees is somehow a distortion of her reality. Dr Bryan Lask of London's Great Ormond Street Hospital scanned the brains of anorexic teenagers in 1998 and found that nearly all of them had reduced blood flow to that part of the brain that controls vision. This is just one of dozens of studies that are now uncovering what happens in the brain when things go haywire.

Consistent and solid evidence is coming from scientists everywhere showing that biochemicals in the womb direct the structure of our brains, in turn dictating our preferences. But most of us don't need millions of dollars worth of brain-scanning equipment to know that men don't listen and women can't read maps; the equipment just explains what is often self-evident.

It's amazing that here, at the beginning of the 21st century, we still don't teach an understanding of male and female relationships in our schools. We prefer to study rats running around mazes or to look at how a monkey will do backflips when conditioned by the reward of bananas. Science is a slow, lumbering discipline and takes years to feed its results into the education system.

So it's therefore up to you, the reader, to educate yourself.

For only then can you hope to have relationships as happy and as fulfilling as both men and women deserve.

Corpus Vile

2009-08-31T15:08:00.004+02:00

“Body Image” is a phrase used to describe how one feels about their body. It includes not only physical appearance, but also the psychological feelings one has about being in their body in general. Women tend to carry the burden of a negative body image, which can lead to depression, addictive exercising, and disordered eating in an effort to fit the norm portrayed by fashion magazines, movie stars, and television programs.

Now one might think that that only refers to ''goishe'' women, that our holy jewish ''weiber'' will not succumb to such shallow presentation of self. Unfortunately this illness has infiltrated the once-thought indestructible walls set up by our dear ''leaders'' and potentates. And just like all other unexpected and new viruses we believe ''it's not that bad'' or ''not us''.

As adults, the quest for an ideal body becomes an exercise in self-control for women. Having internalized the messages that thin is attractive, and fat is lazy, greedy, and/or sloppy, the body becomes something that must be subdued at all costs. Trusting the inherent wisdom of the needs and messages of the body is pushed aside in favor of rigid diets, excessive diets, and cosmetic surgery. Thinness becomes one more tangible goal in our achievement-oriented society, and the body is seen as the one thing that can be controlled when nothing else can.

How can these attitudes be changed so that one can make peace with their body? Since it is unrealistic to cut off all connection with the media and other cultural purveyors of the cult of thinness, it seems that encouraging resilience is the best weapon of transformation.

Please read this carefully my dear meidelach: ''The average size of the “ideal” woman, as portrayed by models, has become progressively thinner over the years and has stabilized at around 20% below the average weight. This thin ideal is unachievable for most women. A 1995 study found that three minutes spent looking at models in a fashion magazine caused 70% of women to feel depressed, guilty, and ashamed.''

As a bochur i can safely say that its a little bit of a turn off if you dont respect your own body. Now we dont want to tell you how pretty and perfect you are because we are afraid that once you realize it you would no longer have any interest in us lowly folk, but please worship your body as we do and you will be a lot more happy in general. (and do it twice a day, advised by Dr. Big N8)

Now many might think or say: ''Now who is shallow? You as a devoted narrow minded jew should not concentrate on the outside rather the inside''. To that i say: you cannot have one without the other. How can you expect to achieve spiritual heights if you are harboring dark and horrible thoughts about any part of you, be it physical or spiritual?

If you are so keen to change yourself i say start with midos, increase in your study of chassidus or any other form of knowledge about the world we live in. Don't waste your ''koiches'' on how bad you think you look or how fat that blue top makes you look. It is shallow and therefore meaningless. Do not cave into the damands on your body from advertisement models or magazines. look in the mirror, encourage yourself to find at least one good point for every piece of criticism you give yourself.

Become aware of your positives. Become friends with the person in the mirror. Say, “I like what I see,” or some other affirmation. Do it until you believe it.

Explore feminist analysis of weight and body image. Is there truth to the statement that keeping women preoccupied with weight control robs women of energy and keeps women “from taking up space”?

Know that you are the superior sex not only because you look like an angel, but because you are smart and fun. If we would want a barbie as a date we would either go to a harlotry or Toys R Us.

You are perfect the way you are.

Six Differences Between Men & Women

2009-08-27T16:23:00.002+02:00

1.Men tend to mumble and have sloppier pronunciation than Woman. They use fillers like 'um', 'uh' and 'like' during conversation, are more likely to drop the 'g' from the end of words, saying comin' and goin', and Using only three tones of voice when speaking, compared to a woman's five tones. When men get together to watch a football match on TV, that's exactly what they do - the only conversation tends to be 'pass the chips' and 'got any more beer?' For a group of woman, meeting up to watch a TV program has always been more of an excuse for a I chat.

2. Woman Love to talk

When women sit together to watch a movie on TV, they usually talk simultaneously about a variety of subjects, including children, men, careers and what's happening in their lives. When groups of men and women watch a movie together, the men usually end up telling the women to shut up. Men can either talk or watch the screen - they can't do both - and they don't understand that women can. Besides, women consider that the point of all getting together is to have a good time and develop relationships - not just to sit there like couch potatoes staring at the screen.

During the ad breaks, a man often asks a woman to explain the storyline and tell him where the relationship between the characters is going. He is unable, unlike women, to read the subtle body language signals that reveal how the characters are feeling emotionally. Since women originally spent their days with the other women and children in the group, they developed the ability to communicate successfully in order to maintain relationships. For a woman, speech continues to have such a clear purpose: to build relationships and make friends. For men, to talk is to relate the facts.

Men see the telephone as a communication tool for relaying facts and information to other people, but a woman sees it as a means of bonding. A woman can spend two weeks on vacation with her girlfriend and, when she returns home, telephone the same girlfriend and talk for another two hours.

3. A man's sentences are shorter than a woman's and are more structured. They usually have a simple. opening, a clear point and a conclusion. It's easy to follow what he means or wants. If you multi-track several subjects with a man, he gets lost.

With a greater flow of information between left and right hemispheres and specific brain locations for speech, most women can talk about several subjects simultaneously sometimes in a single sentence. It's like juggling three or four balls at the one time and most women seem to do it effortlessly. Not only that, but women can juggle several subjects with other women who are all doing the same thing - and no-one ever seems to drop a ball.

4. Men do not discuss personal topics, unlike woman. Modern men still carry the ancient legacy of being brave and showing no weaknesses. Women everywhere ask, 'Why does he always have to be so strong? Why can't he just show me how he feels?' 'When he's angry or upset he bottles it up and becomes cut-off or distant.' 'It's like pulling teeth to get him to discuss his problems.'

By nature, a man is suspicious, competitive, controlled, defensive and a loner who hides his emotional state to stay in control. For men, becoming emotional is seen as being out of control. Social conditioning reinforces these behaviors in men by teaching them to 'act like a man', 'put on a brave face' and 'boys don't cry'.

As a nest-defender, a woman's brain is pre-wired to be open, trusting, co-operative, show vulnerability, reveal emotions and know it's not necessary to stay in control all the time.

5. Woman are indirect.

Women's brains are process-oriented and they enjoy the process of communicating. Men find this lack of structure and purpose very disconcerting, and accuse women of not knowing what they're talking about. Indirect speech may be excellent for building relationships but, unfortunately, that benefit may pale into insignificance if cars or planes end up crashing when the driver or pilot is unclear about what is being said.

6. Women Value Relationships, Men Value Work

Modern society is a mere blip on the screen of human evolution. Many years of living in traditional roles has left modern men and women with brain circuitry that causes most of our relationship problems and misunderstandings. Men have always defined themselves by their work and accomplishments and women define their own self-worth by the quality of their relationships. A man is a lunch-chaser and problem solver - this had to be his priority for survival. A woman is a nest-defender - her role was to ensure survival of the next generation.

As a consequence:

If a woman is unhappy in her relationships she can't concentrate on her work. If a man is unhappy at work he can't focus on his relationships.

To Be Is...?

2009-08-27T16:22:00.005+02:00

in circa 1710 a philosopher named George Berkeley coined the dictum, "Esse est percipi" (to be is to be perceived). Yes, different people perceive me differently. Why is that? I could be for many reasons: Since location, interests, desires, attitudes, experience, condition, all effect the way anybody perceives anything it is no wounder everybody perceives me differently

I, however, think that the reason people perceive me differently is because I act differently around them. E.g. my younger brother sees me as an equal and a playmate because that is the way i present myself to him, my older sister perceives me as an annoying little brother because i have this uncontrollable urge to annoy her whenever I am around her. So you might say the only person who really knows me is me, for only when no-one is around to I act the way I present myself to me.

I think when first meeting someone our psychological, subconscious wheels start turning right away; ''How would this person like me to act towards him?''. Subtle, non-verbal, clues tell us stuff like ''This is your drinking-buddy, be rough around him, trash talk allot'' or ''This is your mother, be sweet and innocent, and praise the food she serves''.

Please tell me what you think.

''Gezeirah Shoveh''?

2009-08-26T15:23:00.000+02:00

There's nothing like an argument from analogy. One use of the argument from analogy is found in response to the question of what or who created the universe. Some have argued that because the universe is like a clock, there must be a Clockmaker. As the eighteenthcentury British empiricist David Hume pointed out, this is a slippery argument, because there is nothing that is really perfectly analogous to the universe as a whole, unless it's another universe, so we shouldn't try to pass off anything that is just a part of this universe.

Why a clock anyhow? Hume asks. Why not say the universe is analogous to a kangaroo? After all, both are organically interconnected systems. But the kangaroo analogy would lead to a very different conclusion about the origin of the universe: namely, that it was born of another universe after that universe had sex with a third universe. A fundamental problem with arguments from analogy is the assumption that, because some aspects of A are similar to B, other aspects of A are similar to B. It ain't necessarily so.

Another problem with arguments from analogy is that you get totally different analogies from different points of view.

Three engineering students are discussing what sort of God must have designed the human body. The first says, "God must be a mechanical engineer. Look at all the joints."

The second says, "I think God must be an electrical engineer.

The nervous system has thousands of electrical connections."

The third says, "Actually, God is a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

Pascal's Wager

2009-08-26T15:09:00.000+02:00

The seventeenth-century French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal argued that deciding whether or not to believe in God is essentially engaging in a wager.

If we choose to behave as if there is a God and we get to the end and it turns out there isn't, it's not such a big deal. Well, maybe we've lost the ability to thoroughly enjoy the Seven Deadly Sins, but that's small potatoes compared to the alternative. If we bet there isn't a God, and get to the end only to tina out there is a God, we've lost the Big Enchilada, eternal bliss.

Therefore, according to Pascal, it is a better strategy to live as if there is a God. This is known to academics as "Pascal's wager." To the rest of us, it's known as hedging your bets.

It is not a matter of proof or evidence, it is a matter of logic and common sense.

Please tell me what you think.