EZ Reads 6/12/11: Mazel Tov Edition

Since it's been a while...

• Happy 38th Anniversary to my parents this past Friday!
• Mazel tov to OD and SIL on the birth of a girl over Shavuos!
• Mazel tov to G on the birth of a baby boy recently! (English name suggestion below...)
• Mazel tov to Moshe and family on their move to (gasp) Cleveland!
• Happy 24th (!) birthday to the Apple!
• Mazel tov to Pobody's Nerfect on a baby girl recently!
• ...and I'm sure there are more I'm forgetting, sorry!
• Elsewhere, some good stuff - Blobby with a really nice story about Jews. That's how I was brought up, where that's how we were viewed. Awesome.
• Avi Shafran proudly "informs" on other Jews, for a good cause. 
• Love is the Motive talks of a nice new app (waiting for it on Android) called PowerSefer, bringing a slew of seforim etc. to your iPhone or PC.
• And really - did you think I'd forget? GO MAVS!! (Suggestion for G: Dirk. I don't care what name he's got, this is a potential add, right?)

Please Pray for Halfway to 72

Please have in mind Yehudah Baruch ben Rivkah Mindel tonight and tomorrow morning; he's an all right guy (I guess) whose 36th (HA!) birthday is tomorrow, in honor of which he is having surgery at 8:30am on his second ear to restore hopefully 80% of his hearing in that ear. He previously had successful surgery on the first ear.

His dear wife SIL noted that the doctor's office did note that they cannot repair selective hearing - ah well for her.

Also worth noting is that I was born exactly 8-1/2 years after my brother, so I'll be halfway to 55 tomorrow. Nice.

Anti-Zionists Not Fooled

A clever piece in the Telegraph. What's hilarious/sad is how many people still didn't get it (see the comments after the piece). Excerpt:

Clever people the Jews… oops, I mean the Israelis. Look at the lengths to which they have gone to distract the world from their daily ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. The latest trick is an Israeli field hospital, rushed into Haiti last Friday and erected in a soccer field.

The US, with all its resources, hasn’t yet managed to set up a field hospital in Haiti (undoubtedly the State Department is still drafting the crucial legal papers needed) but the Israelis, operating with their usual disregard to the niceties of law, slapped one up and have already delivered a baby there. The father, obviously paid off by the Mossad, rapturously declared that the baby would be named “Israel”.

According to Israeli government sources the hospital includes 10 tons of medical equipment, 40 doctors, 24 nurses, medics, paramedics, x-ray equipment and personnel, a pharmacy, an emergency room, two surgery rooms, an incubation ward, a children’s ward and a maternity ward.

Information from Israeli government sources should, of course, be taken with a grain of salt, but footage of this tent-city/hospital has now been seen on SKY, Fox and CNN, ABC and CBS and the video seems to confirm (Mossad video fabricators are tricky) at least that the facility is large, clean, and full of modern equipment. CBS’s piece called the hospital the “Rolls Royce of medicine in Haiti”.

Hat tip: SIL

What is That

I'd rather be texting

After years of having to drive into town to place calls, a farmer finally got a phone line installed in his home. A friend was visiting and in the middle of the conversation, the phone rang. The visitor assumed the farmer would answer the phone but he just let it ring. "Why didn't you answer the phone?" The visitor asked. The farmer responded, "I got this phone as a convenience. Right now I'm talking to you and answering the phone would not be convenient."

As an GenXer, I grew up without the internet and a cell phone. They both became popular while I was in college, so I'm very comfortable with it, but remember life without it. (Really, there was!) In the beginning... the cell phone was for emergencies only. (You only had 100 minutes a month anyway.) There was no such thing as texting. People would never answer their phone in the middle of a conversation with a live human being in front of them. And if it was a really urgent call, they would still feel terribly rude if they took it.

If the conversation you are currently having is important and you value the person with whom you are speaking, then that is what you are doing right now. You can call back, the text won't disappear, learn the art of delayed gratification. For the 1% who don't realize this: By answering the call or text, what you are saying is that the person to whom you are speaking is not really that important to you. You have other things to do.

one sec... i just got a text...

EZ Reads 6/28/09: Commentary

Happy Birthday SIL! After an adventurous weekend (to be continued), it's nice to sit and not be driving.

There are a lot of really great pieces out there and plenty to say on each, so here we go:

• First, the funny: Bad4 retells some horrible guy actions on dates, like discussing date rape on date number one, questioning stopping at stop signs within 5 minutes of meeting the girl, or spitting at someone - then running to a cop when the guy turns around. If you're a guy, are you not appalled? Are there girls who are just as bad? What's so hard about acting like a gentleman?
• Chana has the Miriam Webster Shidduchtionary (an excerpt from Perel Grossman's Adventures in the Produce Aisle and other 'Perelous' Tales), which is overall funny and has some really great lines. Some of the definitions are remarkably accurate: "Bright: always had a lot of potential throughout high school, no achievement, just potential" and "Interesting: weird".
• Rebecca Honig Friedman writes at The Jewish Channel about the R' Elyashiv instruction for men to marry closer in age or even older women than themselves, and the comments ask why men are reluctant to do so. In a follow up at Jewess, a couple men said it's because older singles are "bitter about not being married yet"; from the many 'older single women' we know, I would venture that that's not the case, but they are often extremely unimpressed at the males available to them. We actually have a number of friends where the girl is older than the guy, and we've had people want to set up girls we know only to hear that they're older - and they express the frustration in knowing that their friends will simply not date older women regardless of how good of an idea it is.
  
• Now for the cool: A little about the Israeli taken in the first round of the NBA draft.
• Via A Bit of Light, a really interesting clip about a ba'alas teshuva musician/artist.
  
• So the Aron might be in... Ethiopia?
• Josh at ParshaBlog discusses the Chazon Ish piece (mentioned on Friday), and thinks it's quite important how the Chazon Ish knew what he did about urology. My bet: He made use of the books that weren't far away.
• So... now $300,000+ in NY/NJ doesn't leave you with much savings or charity. Ouch.
• Iiiinteresting: Chief Sephardic Rabbi Amar has banned R' Abraham Sherman from having anything to do with geirus, after his nullifications of conversions by R' Druckman. Honestly Frum thinks this is tremendous.
• Finally, Chana gives her Guide to Judaism, which is certainly an interesting perspective.
  

Quite (and Quote) the Weekend

It was quite the weekend...! We think it was Elianna's favorite weekend with almost all her favorite people: SJ and Erachet visited us for Shabbos, J&S (and for the first time, our friendly sometime lurker Shosh!) came over Friday night, RivkaT stopped by, we were late for a kiddush for D&E before their upcoming move away, ate at Pobody's Nerfect & Shake for lunch, had a dessert at D&E where it seemed a nice chunk of our friends were, and then hosted shalosh seudos for a bunch more, including Rea and Xvi.*

Oh, and: My brother and SIL had a baby boy on Shabbos (Mazel Tov!!!), Kayla's birthday was Friday, I got a job, and we had parties galore it seemed.

All in all, it was nice, exciting, exhausting, and nothing compared to what next week will probably be like in terms of hecticity. This is niece/nephew #17 for us (#8 on my side), and mother and baby are bH doing well. Ben, Hen, and Shen are super excited about their new baby brother!

And of course, there's never a dull moment, so here are some of the best quotes from another great Shabbos:

Serach: What's Daddy's favorite color?
Elianna: E!

Elianna (rambling about a story she's making up as she goes along) "...I made a cupcake."
SJ: What was in it?
Elianna: Vanilla... and ice cream... and blue!

Older gentleman on way home from shul, as we walked past heading toward a kiddush: {smiling} "Are you going in the right direction?"
Ezzie: {smiles} Yes, I am. Perhaps you are going in the wrong direction?
Older gentleman: No, I'm going in the right direction as well. Isn't it something that two people going in opposite directions can both still be headed in the right direction?
Ez - I just love that one.

* Later, we got ice cream, although we did not have a hot chocolate ending.

Kids and Smiles

A few smiles always make things a little better, so, via SIL:

So many funny Shen (2) stories, but this one beats all.
Shen was stuck in the high chair and she wanted to get out to go to the bathroom.
"I have to make." No response.
"I have to make, I have to make, I have to make." No response.
"Hello, I have to make."
That worked!
(Is it time to leave NY when your 2 year old starts saying "hello" to get attention??)

We were at the zoo in Cleveland, in the bathroom (hmm... seems like life revolves around a common theme these days) and Hen (5) needed to wash her hands but the sink was way way too high. Exasperated, I wondered aloud, "How do they expect kids to use this sink?" She replied logically, "It's for tall kids."

Mom, Clevelander

(Bad4, Erachet, RaggedyMom, Moshe, the apple, et al - enjoy. :) )

I'd like to wish a hearty congratulations to my mother, who I realized has recently been able to supplant her status as someone from New York City by having spent more time living in Cleveland. This now classifies her as a Clevelander, rather than a New Yorker. (Perhaps not much of a step up, but a step up nevertheless! :) )

My brother, however... poor guy. He better move to Milwaukee if he hopes to have a chance at losing his New Yorker status. Pretty sad for a guy with a "now leaving New York" sign on his entrance way...

To my dear SIL, here's your count:

• 3+ years NYC
• 1 year Indianapolis
• 9+ years Cleveland
• 8+ years Milwaukee
• <1>
• 11.5 years NYC again
  

Yeah. Definitely a New Yorker. Sad, really. I mean, he's coming up on 15 years of his life here. 15 years!! Oy.

I Love My Niece

From SIL:

From the weekend

Whenever Shen (just turned 2) wants to do something she knows we won't allow, she says "Go sleep, Imma/Daddy."

Apparently, Shen did not appreciate the jelly belly flavors this Shabbos. Surveying her plateful of chewed and spit out jelly beans, she announced, "That's enough."

Shen was sucking her paci for comfort after a particularly upsetting incident. Suddenly, she took it out and gave it to me. "Here," she said, "I'm happy."

Muslims Going Off the Derech

SIL sent this in; sorry I can't embed. It's great, though.

Milk But NOT Sugar

From SIL:

Shen (newly 2) likes to make herself clear by saying something and then by ruling out the opposite. For example, she'll say her food is "hot, NOT cold". She woke me up today at 5 AM and wanted a drink. I told her I would go get her sippy cup. She replied "Get sippy cup, NOT coffee."

Israeli SNL imitates BBC

Crayons

From SIL:

Shen (almost 2) worked very hard to clean up a lot of crayons from the floor. A few minutes later, she was dancing to some music and she stepped into the still open box of crayons spilling most of them back onto the floor. She took a deep breath and let it out, stared at the mess for a few moments, then turned to me and said "I sad."

2008: A Retrospective

A retrospective on SerandEz? Eh. Retrospectives are lame, at least when they utilize predetermined times and are incredibly artificial. When you feel like "hey, this is a good opportunity/reason/point in time to look back on things"... now that's a good time for a retrospective. So instead, enjoy this one, sent in by SIL.

Happy New Year!

SIL, Fashionista

From SIL:

Last night I was getting ready to go to the Chofetz Chaim Annual Dinner and I was wearing a fancy outfit. Shira (almost 2) patted my skirt and said "I-like-it dress". I had yet to put on my make-up and wig, but Ben (6) thought that was fine. He commented, "It's good that you look beautiful, but not so beautiful because then you'd be showing off."

On Shabbos, Ben and Hen (4) were finding commonalities in everyone's clothing color, but Hen announced that since she was wearing black, she went with everyone because "black matches everything."

A Journalist Admits and Explains Media Bias

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188&page=1

The Path of the J... Straight

It is currently 4:11am in Cleveland, Ohio, and there are many thoughts occupying my mind. One of the particularly intriguing ones to me is a rather amusing question my sister-in-law, SIL, asked me tonight as we were waiting to make havdalah. "If you could change the name of your blog right now to anything, what would it be?"

In truth, I like the name SerandEz and am not changing it. But immediately, three possibilities that I'd play around with popped into my head. One was Clarity. The second was Balance. The third, and somewhat favorite, was Yashrus (Straight [referring to how one acts]).

Tonight at my parents' shul in Cleveland Heights there was a guest who - for the second consecutive year - was particularly thought-provoking when speaking briefly before ma'ariv. His topic this year was... chasidus (not that kind), or piety. One aspect that was particularly interesting was that he spoke entirely from the direct words of the classic text, Mesilas Yesharim - as he noted, often mistranslated as "Path of the Just", it actually means "Path of the Straight".

While I can easily write countless lengthy posts on either what he spoke about or on Mesilas Yesharim (and am considering doing just that), a couple points in particular that were interesting were among the first notes he made. The first, famous line of the text is

יסוד החסידות ושרש העבודה התמימה הוא - שיתברר ויתאמת אצל האדם מה חובתו בעולמו

...loosely translated as "The foundation of chasidus and the root of service that is pure is: That it be clear and truthful to a person what his responsibility is in his world." The speaker* noted that the task is really straightforward: Birur, or clarity. A person needs to understand what exactly it is they are trying to do, where it is they are trying to get to.

Second, while people often call Mesilas Yesharim a mussar sefer (texts regarding ethics, self-improvement, conduct, et al.), he noted that it is not one - mussar plays a minimal role, and the author specifically only uses it to accomplish certain goals and make specific points throughout the text. The goal of the text is in fact to steer someone onto that "Straight Path".

Finally, the speaker noted and discussed a curious aspect of the text: Only one large section, the one on chassidus, has a subsection on what to look out for in determining whether or not one should pursue it. Up until that point, everything discussed are things that a person must do and must not do to be righteous and do what is right. However, for chassidus - going above and beyond what is necessary - a person must weigh and determine what is and is not appropriate for them in their world. The text specifically warns against chassidus because it can lead to people making mistakes that hurt both themselves and others.

There was a ton of interesting material; enjoy this food for thought. Moadim L'Simcha!

* Please note that I'm relating, from memory, my own impressions from the speech. Any and all mistakes are mine; any ideas may be and often are my own interpretations based loosely on what I heard or thought I heard.

Who Shall Live

If you haven't seen it yet, this video is emotion- and thought-provoking in time for Rosh Hashana; I haven't seen a video circulate so fast and so furiously in a while. I think I've received or seen this video well over a dozen times in the last couple of days, and figured it would be good to post very close to the Yomim Naoraim (Days of Awe - 10 days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur).

It's called Who Shall Live. (My sister-in-law SIL, who sent it to me first, warns not to watch around kids.)

A Soldier Speaks

SIL forwarded this short YouTube video to me, and I felt it was very powerful. I replied "that's amazing" to her in the middle of the video... and almost felt stupid for sending it so soon, because the end is so much more so. Please watch it.